Art Journaling vs. Art Therapy vs. Therapeutic Art: Which One Do You Need?

Art journaling is a self-directed practice you do on your own, at your own pace. Art therapy is clinical work delivered by a trained art therapist inside a therapeutic relationship. Therapeutic art sits between them: a guided creative experience with healing intent, led by a facilitator rather than a clinician. Choose by how much holding you need, not by how much you like making things.

I am Rakefet Hadar, an art therapist, an author, and the founder of the school that trains Way-Finders to guide creative work in a visual journal through the SoulPages method. I have sat on both sides of this question: in the clinic, where the work is treatment, and at a kitchen table with my own journal in 2014, the year my mother was dying of cancer and I was so depleted from giving to my clients that I needed somewhere to be the one receiving. Those two rooms are not the same room, and most articles blur them. Here is the honest map.

What is the difference between art journaling and art therapy?

The difference is not the materials, it is who holds the process and what it is responsible for. In art journaling you hold it. In art therapy a credentialed therapist holds it, and the work is accountable as treatment.

What is art journaling?

Art journaling is the practice of working in a visual journal over time, combining color, imagery, collage, line, and a few words to reflect what you are living through. Nobody assigns it, nobody grades it, and nobody needs to see it. Its power is accumulation: one page is a moment, fifty pages are a map of a year.

It asks nothing in terms of skill. You do not need to know how to draw. You need to let color and imagery meet the page and see what rises.

What is art therapy?

Art therapy is a clinical profession in which a trained art therapist uses image-making inside a therapeutic relationship to assess and treat psychological distress. The image is not the point; the relationship in which the image is made is the point. The therapist carries responsibility for safety, for pacing, for what happens when something opens too fast, and for continuity between sessions.

That is the real dividing line. A journal cannot notice that you have gone pale and quiet. A therapist can.

What is therapeutic art, and where does it fit?

Therapeutic art is guided creative work made with healing intent, led by someone who is not acting as your clinician: a workshop facilitator, a course teacher, a retreat guide. There is structure, there is a held space, there is often a group. What there is not is a clinical contract, a diagnosis, or treatment goals.

This middle category is where most group creative work actually lives, and naming it honestly matters. A weekend of making art in good company can be genuinely healing and still not be therapy, and a facilitator who calls it therapy is overstating what they are holding.

Where does the SoulPages method sit among the three?

SoulPages is a method of working in a visual journal in which every session begins by connecting to the strong, good parts of you and to your resources, and only from that ground does harder material get approached, if at all.

Practically, it spans two of the three columns above. Used alone with your own journal, it is art journaling with a trauma-sensitive structure. Used in a group with a trained Way-Finder, it is therapeutic art with a specific method behind it. It becomes art therapy only when the person holding the room is a therapist working clinically, which is exactly why the training school exists as a separate thing from the clinic.

One thing carries across all three uses: in this method we do not work with trauma head-on unless you brought that material yourself and you are ready to work with it. The trauma is there, we know it exists, and it is not the door we walk through. The door is resources: people you love, parents and family including those who are gone, places that held you, moments you were braver than you knew. Community is a resource too, and a significant one.

Which one do you need? A short decision path

1. You want a regular place to process ordinary life, privately, at your own pace. Art journaling. Start tonight with a notebook and whatever paint is in the house.
2. You want structure, teaching, and other women around you, and your material is manageable. Therapeutic art: a course, a group, a retreat.
3. You are working with trauma, grief that has stopped moving, a diagnosis, or anything that affects sleep and daily functioning. Art therapy, with a credentialed therapist. Keep journaling alongside it if you want to.
4. You journal already, and it keeps leaving you flooded, numb, or worse than before. That is not a signal to try harder alone. It is a signal to bring someone in.
5. You want to guide this work for others. Then you need training, not just a practice, and you need to be clear in your own marketing about which of the three you are offering.

Can you do both at the same time?

Yes, and it is often the strongest combination. A journal gives you the six days between sessions. It catches what surfaces at 11pm, holds it until you can bring it somewhere, and gives you something concrete to bring: not “the week was hard” but a page of torn paper and dark blue that says what the week was.

Therapists rarely mind. Many welcome it. If you are in treatment, tell your therapist you keep a journal and ask how they would like you to use it; that conversation itself tends to be useful.

Frequently asked questions

Is art journaling the same as art therapy?

No. Art journaling is a self-directed creative practice you lead yourself, while art therapy is clinical treatment delivered by a trained art therapist within a therapeutic relationship. The materials can be identical; the responsibility for safety and pacing is not.

Can art journaling replace therapy?

No, though it can do real work alongside it. Journaling is enough when heavy material moves and you leave the page a little lighter. When the same overwhelm returns every time, or sleep and functioning are affected, that material needs a professional beside you.

What is therapeutic art?

Guided creative work made with healing intent and led by a facilitator, teacher, or guide rather than a clinician. It offers structure and a held space, but no diagnosis, treatment plan, or clinical contract.

Do I need to be able to draw for any of these?

No. None of the three depends on drawing skill. Collage, color fields, torn paper, and mark-making carry most of the expressive work, which is why people with no art background often go deepest fastest.

Can I bring my art journal into therapy?

Usually yes, and it often helps. Pages made between sessions give a therapist something concrete to work from and let you show what is hard to say. Ask your therapist how they would like to use them.

How do I know if I need art therapy rather than art journaling?

Watch the direction, not the intensity. If creating leaves you clearer or emptier in a good way, journaling is doing its job. If it repeatedly leaves you panicked, numb, or spiraling, if the trauma is recent, or if daily life is suffering, choose a credentialed therapist.

There is a moment I have seen in both rooms, and it looks exactly the same in each one: a woman puts down the brush, looks at what she made, and goes quiet in a way that means something moved. What differs is who is there to catch it. Choosing well is not about which practice is deeper, it is about being honest with yourself about how much holding you need right now. Give yourself twenty minutes, take a page, some watercolor, a few images, and make something that reflects exactly what you feel today. If you want a structured way in, my guide to keeping an art therapy journal walks you through the first pages, my article on whether it is safe to journal about trauma covers the safety side in depth, and the courses at soul-pages.com go further whenever you are ready.

With love,
Rakefet

The SoulPages School: Where the Method Is Taught, in Israel and Worldwide

The SoulPages method is taught at the Creative Journeys School, founded in 2014, which has trained SoulPages facilitators since 2016, through a training of twenty meetings delivered live on Zoom. The international cohort opens once a year, and a graduate receives a certificate qualifying her to lead SoulPages groups and to work with private clients. An identical Hebrew training has run in Israel throughout.

My name is Rakefet Hadar. I am an art therapist and an author, and I developed the SoulPages method in 2014. I teach the international training myself, alongside assistant and guest teachers. This page answers one question: where the method is taught, what is actually studied, and what a graduate walks away with. For what the method rests on professionally, the papers and book chapters are gathered on the publications page.

What is the SoulPages school?

The Creative Journeys School was founded in 2014, the same year I developed the method, and in its first years it taught courses for the general public. The facilitator training opened there in 2016, and it began because of a need that came from the students themselves: women who had worked with me in the journal wanted to pass it on, and asked for a proper structure that would teach them how.

The SoulPages method is a way of working in a visual journal in which every page is built in layers, following a fixed sequence of seven elements: intention, the magic of chance, background, colour, image, line and text. That sequence is the core of the curriculum, and around it sit group facilitation, working with the inner voices, and a thorough grounding in materials and techniques.

The school offers two separate facilitator tracks in English:

• SoulPages Facilitator Training. The main training, and the one that leads to the certificate. The current cohort is the 26-27 training.
• Color Archetypes Mentor Training. A separate track that goes deep into the colour language of the method, built on the book Color Archetypes.

What do you study in the facilitator training?

The training runs over twenty live meetings, around 93 academic hours, alongside a private mentoring session with me. It is built in three layers that run in parallel from the first week to the last:

1. The personal experience. You go through the process you will later guide. You cannot walk another woman through a layer you have not walked yourself.
2. The professional knowledge. The seven elements in depth, the making techniques, journal binding, and working with image, colour and text as emotional tools rather than aesthetic ones.
3. The facilitation. How to build a workshop, how to hold a group, what to do when heavy material surfaces, and how to define your own audience and your own vision as a facilitator.

Every session is recorded and kept, so a missed week is not a lost week, and a graduate can return to the material in the years that follow. Alongside the training the school runs professional modules that graduates and students can take separately: journal binding, creative marketing for facilitators, and video production for art-based online teaching.

How does the international training differ from the Hebrew one?

In practice, almost nothing. The same method, the same seven elements, the same twenty meetings and the same pace. What is taught in English is what is taught in Hebrew.

The difference is not in the content and not in the pace. It is the language, and who stands in front of the group. Choosing between them is choosing the language you are comfortable learning in, not choosing between two levels.

What does a graduate receive?

A certificate as a Mentor of the SoulPages method, qualifying her to work with groups and with private clients through workshops of her own design. With it comes entry to the closed community of SoulPages facilitators in Israel and around the world, and access to the school’s own flagship curriculum, which means a ready programme to start with rather than a blank page.

Graduates are listed publicly. The directory of certified SoulPages facilitators and mentors is open on the site, and in Israel the parallel directory currently holds 243 certified women across six regions.

Who is the training for, and who is it not for?

It suits therapists and facilitators looking for another tool in the kit, women who have been through a significant process in the journal themselves and want to pass it on, and anyone looking for a profession that can be practised alongside other work.

No art background is required. The techniques are built so that drawing ability is never the gate, and a good share of the graduates had not touched art materials before they arrived.

What the training does require is time. Twenty meetings, with personal journal work between them, is a real commitment. If what you want is a first encounter with the journal rather than a professional qualification, start here instead, with the open courses on the site.

And it is not a therapy qualification. It trains you to accompany a creative process, not to treat trauma, and that distinction is taught explicitly inside the training itself.

What does the school rest on?

On a method with professional documentation outside the school itself, which is what separates a training from a private course. The method has been published in two peer-reviewed professional journals in Israel, a chapter of it appears in Protocols of Strength and Hope from Ono Academic College, and another in Safe Studio, the anthology of YAHAT, the Creative and Expressive Arts Therapies Association in Israel. Two protocols in a book by the Community Stress Prevention Center, used in resilience centres across Israel, are based on my work and credited to me by name.

All of it, along with the press coverage and the exhibitions, is gathered on the publications page, with a link to the original source for every item.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I learn the SoulPages method?
At the Creative Journeys School, founded in 2014, which has trained SoulPages facilitators since 2016 and is the only framework awarding the SoulPages facilitator certificate. Training runs live on Zoom, in English for the international cohort since 2021 and in Hebrew in Israel.

How long is the SoulPages facilitator training?
Twenty live meetings, around 93 academic hours, in English and in Hebrew alike. The international cohort opens once a year, and in Israel two cohorts open each year, in October and in January or February.

Do I need an art or therapy background to train?
No. The techniques are built so that drawing ability is never required, and there is no prior qualification in therapy. Some students are therapists adding a tool to their practice, and others arrive with no professional background at all.

What do graduates receive?
A certificate as a Mentor of the SoulPages method, qualifying them to work with groups and private clients using workshops of their own design, entry to the closed international community of facilitators, and access to the school’s flagship curriculum.

Is the SoulPages facilitator training a qualification in art therapy?
No. It qualifies you to accompany creative work in a visual journal, not to treat trauma or practise psychotherapy. The distinction between accompanying and treating is taught explicitly within the training.

Are there certified SoulPages facilitators outside Israel?
Yes. The international training has run since 2021, and certified facilitators are listed in the directory on this site. In Israel the separate Hebrew directory currently holds 243 certified women across six regions.

When the first facilitator cohort opened in 2016 I had no idea that ten years later there would be hundreds of women teaching the method themselves, each in her own voice and her own community. Give yourself twenty minutes today, take a page, some watercolour, a few images, and make something that reflects exactly what you are feeling right now. And when you feel ready to pass it on, the school is here. There is also a free lesson waiting when you join the list: soul-pages.com

With love, Rakefet