Response art is a practice used by many helping professionals to contain and process intense emotions related to their work with clients. While training as an art therapist, I began using response art as a way to develop greater empathy, separate my own psychic content from that of my clients, and protect myself from overly identifying with the content I was working with every day. During my years working with combat veterans and incarcerated clients, this practice was particularly important in protecting against vicarious traumatization and burnout, but also allowed for greater insight into how my internal experience paralleled the content my clients were working through.
