11 DIY Art Therapy Prompts For Mental Health Awareness Month

At Integrative Counsel, we like to think that we embody the spirit of Mental Health Awareness Month all year long. But in 2025, we are going the extra mile with free therapy resources for the people of St. Petersburg. That means free art therapy prompts like the ones in this article, but it goes much further than that.

This May 18th, Integrative Counsel is doing our part to Keep St. Pete Weird & Well! We’ll be holding a FREE community festival all about how to find and sustain the best version of your Self. But in the meantime, let’s get to know our Selves through the time-tested tradition of art.

How To Get In The Right Mindset For DIY Art Therapy

The great part about working with an art therapist is having an expert guide alongside you in the creative process. The right art therapist can recognize the common pitfalls, and help you get into the right mindset for growing and healing through art therapy.

So if having the right mindset is key when it comes to art therapy, how do we put ourselves into the right mindset when we don’t have an expert guide present? What are we looking for, what are the common pitfalls, and what can we actually do to put ourselves in the right mindset to grow?

• Set Aside Time In Your Schedule For Art Therapy. As adults, we put the events that are most important to us on our schedule. By working artistic expression into your schedule, you’re creating a time and place for it where you aren’t expected or encouraged to be working on anything else. 
• Calm Your Nervous System. Just because your brain knows it’s time to do art therapy, that doesn’t mean your body does. If we try to be calm without working through the emotions that are living in our body, we put ourselves at risk for failure before we’ve even begun. You can calm your nervous system by doing guided breathwork (like a meditation), lighting incense, or stepping into your body with some exercise! 
• Write In Your Journal. One of the most powerful pieces of routine we have for finding the right mindset is writing in our journal. Journaling allows us to see our thoughts with a degree of separation from them. A shocking amount of our rumination and negative self-talk will crumble under examination when we journal, but it requires the effort of picking up our journal and writing in it even when we don’t feel like it.
• Put Yourself In A Peaceful Location. How often have you felt anxious just because of the room you were in? Lighting, ambient sound, and the general mood of the place we’re in can have a huge effect on our mindset, so let’s use that to our benefit! Find (or create) a safe space in which to do your art, and you’ll never have to wonder where to go for DIY art therapy.
• Self-Soothe With The 5 Senses. Sensory experience is the quickest way to hack our brain into calmness. By experiencing the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures that comfort us, we can wordlessly communicate to our mind and body that we are safe, calm, and free to express ourselves.
• Make Art When You’re Sad. If you’re feeling big feelings, it makes sense to try and tend to them before you embark on an art therapy project. But there are some feelings that cannot be healthily worked through all at once, and it is often more healing to work through these feelings in art therapy rather than just self-soothe. It can be cathartic to be creative when we are emotional, and some of the most powerful breakthroughs come from our most powerful emotions.

Where Can I Find Art Therapy Opportunities Near Me? 

• Keep St. Pete Weird + Well Festival. As much as I hate to keep plugging this event (just kidding, I am living for it), you’d be hard pressed to find a better therapy opportunity in St. Petersburg. So if you’re looking to get better in tune with your mind, body, and soul, please come join us!
• Make Art At A Local Venue. St. Pete is an artsy town, and being surrounded by great artistic opportunities is one of the consequences of that. Just click on that link and you can find a number of great places in town where you can do some quality DIY art therapy.
• Work With A Local Art Therapist Like Quinn Smalley. Just like the best chefs tend to work in fancy restaurants, the best art therapists in St. Petersburg tend to work for Integrative Counsel. Quinn is a great therapist who provides quality art therapy to clients all over St. Pete.

Art Therapy Covered By My Insurance

Art therapy is more mainstream than you’d think. The results are hard to deny. That’s why more and more insurance providers are covering art therapy in their plans. If mental health care is provided for by your insurance, then that means art therapy probably is too. 

• Art Therapists Who Accept Aetna Insurance. If you have health insurance from Aetna, you’re in the right place! Our team is covered by your insurance, and here to offer you quality art therapy that’s covered by your insurance.
• Art Therapists Who Accept Cigna Insurance. There’s no reason that it should be so difficult to find a therapist who accepts your Cigna insurance. Wherever you are on your journey as a mother, we have a right-fit counselor who’s got you covered (and is covered by your insurance!)
• Art Therapy For People With Optum. Finding counseling that fits in your lifestyle can be quite the journey, but Integrative Counsel is here to help you at every step of the way. If you’re covered by Optum Oscar, Optum Oxford, or United Optum, we can match you with a right-fit counselor who’s covered by your plan.

Art Therapy Prompts For May 2025

• Get Back In Touch With What You Loved About Art In The First Place. We all made art as kids. So try making art the same way you did back then. The mediums and subjects we pursue in childhood can be highly rewarding to revisit as an adult. Working with fingerpaints, modeling clay, or tadpole people are all great ways to get in touch with our inner child through art therapy. 
• Create Something Little Every Day. When we’re busy, it’s tempting to cut artistic expression out of our schedule. After all, it doesn’t serve an obvious purpose in the same way that eating lunch, going to work, or getting enough sleep do. It’s during these times that finding a small outlet for your art therapy can be life-changing. Art therapy needn’t take up an hour of your time, nor even a half-hour. Origami, haiku-writing, and digital collage (you can do it on your phone!) are all great ways to incorporate art therapy into your life in a small but meaningful way.
• Make A Piece About How Your Body Feels. Sickness and physical pain are some of the most common but debilitating problems we face as human beings. These feelings can be hard to describe, and make even something as supposedly frivolous as art feel out of our reach. But making art allows us to access the unconscious thoughts and feelings that would be otherwise too difficult to express. It’s a lot easier to imagine what our pain might look like than to put into words how that pain is affecting us. Dull aches can become thick swatches of darkness, and sharp pains can become spiky explosions of color. You might be surprised with what you see.
• Journal About Your Intentions. Our intentions are like a GPS that leads to our desires. We write out the things that we desire as memorable positive statements so that they stay at the front of our mind as we work towards them. Intention-setting is a powerful tool both personally and artistically because it helps to accomplish things that are too big to tackle in a single sitting. So open up your journal and try writing a few intentions that answer the following questions:
  • What am I going to accomplish today?
  • What am I going to accomplish this week? 
  • What am I going to accomplish this year? 
  • What am I going to accomplish with my life? 
  • What do I wish I could accomplish if only I could?
• Don’t Erase Your Failures. It’s tempting to work with a pencil or digital art because it makes the process of erasing our mistakes a lot easier, but it can also put unnecessary pressure on ourselves to make a piece without mistakes. Try making a piece of art where your mistakes are embraced rather than erased. 

“There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.” – Bob Ross

Where Can I Find An Art Therapist In St. Petersburg? 

Integrative Counsel offers virtual Art Therapy with Quinn Smalley, a certified OCD professional who also specializes in helping young adults navigate the challenges of college adjustment or other major life transitions, self-perception, and relationship issues. With a compassionate and solutions-focused approach, Quinn combines CBT  with creative expression to help clients explore their emotions and develop healthy coping strategies.Using art as a tool for self-discovery, clients can engage in a non-verbal form of communication that can often bring new insights and clarity. Quinn’s unique approach empowers individuals to gain a deeper understanding of themselves while working towards positive change. Whether you’re managing anxiety, stress, or seeking personal growth, art therapy can offer a supportive and creative space for healing. Click here to schedule your virtual art therapy session!

Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.