The Art Therapy Experience Based on Online Education System for Higher Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Communication Method

During the epidemic period, students’ mental health needs more attention. Art therapy based on school can help students deal with psychological problems. However, with the implementation of online education, traditional art therapy needs to make changes to adapt to the current situation. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the way of integrating art therapy communication into university online education system under the background of the pandemic, to clarify the significance and value of art therapy to defend the novel coronavirus pneumonia and to explore the problem and improvement of a kind of online group art therapy for higher education. This paper conducted an exploratory case study, which carried out an online group art therapy communication project on an English course provided by the school of design, the South China University of Technology for first-year postgraduates. 15 Chinese students participated in the project and they were interviewed after the project. The results show that this kind of online group art therapy project can help students to get a more positive emotional experience. Communication is the key to the success of this kind of art therapy, and network technology is the main challenge. In the future, it is necessary to establish an art therapy framework in the online education system and to explore more therapy programs and methods.