Effectiveness of Expressive Art Therapy Module in Group Counseling Sessions for Depression and Anxiety Adolescents

Abstract

Delinquent adolescents are those who tend to face turbulent emotions which affect their behaviour. The untreated depression and anxiety are focused due to their negative impact on oneself and the surrounding society. Therefore, an appropriate intervention should be given so that quality humans can be developed. Integration between counselling and expressive art therapy is a platform of creative exploration as a healing process in helping relationships. The aim of this study was to identify the effects of an expressive art therapy module in group counselling sessions on delinquent adolescents’ depression and anxiety. True-experimental designs with pre and post-test methods are used in this study. A total of 72 delinquent adolescents which is 36 adolescents from the experiment group and 36 adolescents from the control group living in moral rehabilitation institutions, aged 14 to 18 years old were selected using purposeful sampling. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were used to measure the dependent variable. The results showed that descriptive analysis using MANOVA repeated measured found that the overall validity coefficient of the module, as well as the reliability, was a high Cronbach Alpha value of .658. Meanwhile, levels of depression were low and anxiety was moderate. Research implications are discussed from theoretical aspects, counselling professionals, counsellors and practitioners in the field of counselling, especially those who deal with delinquent adolescents.