art therapy for pain
Migraine
Bilateral drawing, a technique used in art therapy and trauma recovery, involves using both hands simultaneously to make marks, engaging both brain hemispheres
This practice enhances focus, reduces stress, and fosters a meditative state by synchronizing movement and breath. You can reconnect "thinking" and "feeling"
Process Over Result: The focus is on the rhythmic, physical act of drawing rather than creating a finished, polished artwork.
This practice enhances focus, reduces stress, and fosters a meditative state by synchronizing movement and breath. You can reconnect "thinking" and "feeling"
Process Over Result: The focus is on the rhythmic, physical act of drawing rather than creating a finished, polished artwork.
What bilateral drawing does?
Engages both sides of the body and brain simultaneously (coordination between the left and right brain)— using both hands to move and draw pulls in bilateral motor patterns and sensory input. This is similar to rhythmic, repetitive movements like walking, rocking, or drumming. It’s inherently sensorimotor.
Because it’s body-based and sensory first, it taps into processes outside of purely cognitive control — meaning it works “bottom-up” (from body/sensory systems → brain regulation) rather than “top-down” (cognitive deliberate control).
It activates interhemispheric interaction , promotes cognitive development, improves focus, and can help release perfectionism.
Process Over Result: The focus is on the rhythmic, physical act of drawing rather than creating a finished, polished artwork.
Because it’s body-based and sensory first, it taps into processes outside of purely cognitive control — meaning it works “bottom-up” (from body/sensory systems → brain regulation) rather than “top-down” (cognitive deliberate control).
It activates interhemispheric interaction , promotes cognitive development, improves focus, and can help release perfectionism.
Process Over Result: The focus is on the rhythmic, physical act of drawing rather than creating a finished, polished artwork.
From body rhythms to nervous system states
These bilateral sensory-motor patterns help shift attention away from threat signals (e.g., freeze/fight/flight activation) and bring someone back into rhythmic motor engagement. That rhythm tends to cue parasympathetic activation — similar to how steady breathing, rocking, or slow movement does.
This kind of bilateral rhythmic movement modulates arousal physiologically instead of cognitively — exactly what bottom-up regulation refers to. It gives the nervous system something predictable and rhythmic to lock onto, which helps dampen sympathetic overdrive and recruit parasympathetic influences.
This kind of bilateral rhythmic movement modulates arousal physiologically instead of cognitively — exactly what bottom-up regulation refers to. It gives the nervous system something predictable and rhythmic to lock onto, which helps dampen sympathetic overdrive and recruit parasympathetic influences.
Nervous system
mechanisms behind it
mechanisms behind it
Rhythmic motor patterns that cross the midline can influence brainstem and vagal pathways, which are core regulators of heart rate, breathing, and calm/rest functions of the parasympathetic system. There isn’t a clear experimental study directly showing that bilateral drawing increases vagal tone, but the therapeutic logic draws from broader neuroscience: rhythmic, embodied engagement tends to slow respiration, lower heart rate, and dampen limbic hyperactivation — all classical signs of parasympathetic engagement.
Cathy Malchiodi’s work frames this in art therapy as helping clients shift out of limbic hyperactivation and into states where the body and mind can settle and integrate experience — a bottom-up regulatory effect that supports autonomic balance.
Cathy Malchiodi’s work frames this in art therapy as helping clients shift out of limbic hyperactivation and into states where the body and mind can settle and integrate experience — a bottom-up regulatory effect that supports autonomic balance.
Why this is “bottom-up”
regulation?
regulation?
Bottom-up = starts with body/sensory/implicit experience, not conscious reasoning.
Bilateral drawing floods the nervous system with predictable sensorimotor input before any talk or meaning-making happens. That input influences subcortical centers (brainstem and limbic circuits), which in turn shifts autonomic balance toward the parasympathetic side.
Bilateral drawing floods the nervous system with predictable sensorimotor input before any talk or meaning-making happens. That input influences subcortical centers (brainstem and limbic circuits), which in turn shifts autonomic balance toward the parasympathetic side.
Rhythm + bilateral motor engagement → sensory safety signals → parasympathetic recruitment → calmer physiology. That’s exactly what bottom-up regulation of the nervous system aims for in trauma and self-regulation practice.
