From the author: God molded a man from clay and he was left with an unused piece. - What else do you need to make? - God asked. “Make me happy,” the man asked. God didn’t answer, he just put the remaining piece of clay in the man’s palm. Art therapy is the lifesaver of modern society At a time when it is important for a person to gain additional energy to overcome crises, difficulties, or simply to experience life-changing events, society turns to art, creativity, and other forms of creative self-expression. The expression of creativity structures a person’s reality, so through song, drawing and dance, one can regulate an impulsive or aggressive state, and stabilize internal homeostasis. Through fairy tales and puppet therapy, one can effectively convey the social experience of all humanity without long and painful moralizing. The techniques and methods of art therapy are as realistic and environmentally friendly as possible for humans, and are also relatively safe in the work of a practical psychologist at all stages of psychocorrection. Let's consider several arguments in favor of the effectiveness of these forms of psychological assistance. 1. Psychological work with individual art therapeutic products “I” of a person always have a positive effect on self-esteem and self-knowledge. Thus, each drawing, analysis of personal photographs or just images (phototherapy) ensures that a person has thoughts and directs his thoughts “inside” himself. And self-knowledge is the highest form of knowledge. 2. Art therapy techniques develop and activate those areas of the human brain in the right hemisphere that systematically and systematically die off in the process of schooling: a huge amount of memorization, tests, algorithmization of learning does not leave room for creativity, search and self-realization of the child in the learning process. And even labor training lessons, which are aimed at developing creativity and ingenuity, are conducted according to standardized preparations and templates, which a priori excludes individuality and originality. And what we get as a result are adults who are incapable of making decisions and choices. But it all starts with a question to the teacher - “What color should I paint the sky with?” And the teacher’s response is the first program either to zombify and robotize the child’s consciousness, or to free himself in a flight of fancy.3. Art therapy is the most painless “vacuum cleaner” of a person’s negative emotions and experiences. Drawing and acting out, modeling complex life situations in the sand or on stage, provides a person with not just one way out, but a whole range of adequate, socially acceptable forms of role-playing problems. This reduces emotional distress regarding existential questions “What to do?” And so in the process of working with a psychologist, the dead end becomes a new door that just needs to be opened to get a whole world of possibilities.4. The materials with which an art psychologist works provide a thin and indestructible, in the process of the formation of humanity, a thread between man and nature. Clay, dolls, sand, paper, fabrics, coal, paints - this is what accompanied humanity at all stages of the transformation of civilization, and therefore quite successfully helps to overcome problems and the development of an individual personality. After all, it is much easier for a person to get rid of a grudge: by drawing the offender as funny, creating caricature sculptures of the problem, or making a doll to protect against insults.5. At moments when we need to concentrate or tune in to our own reception of information, we constantly draw doodles in the margins, but when a child draws such doodles, we try to find the meaning. And very often you just want to go back to childhood and draw little scribbles, or cook malasha porridge from clay. After all, only in childhood do we receive a charge of strength and potency for life. So, art therapy makes it possible to travel to childhood, “bringing” souvenirs from there: in the form of resourceful memories, experience of overcoming, willingness to accept support, skills not to