Intervening Aggression: Expressive Art Therapy

Aggression is considered as a deliberate hurtful behavior to others to induce physical or psychological damage. Research about aggression has become a topic in sociology, epidemiology, criminology, psychology, psychiatry and many multidisciplinary fields. Researchers study about social psychology and biological factors, and intervention measures of aggression. Intervening aggression to reduce or eliminate the negative consequences of violence. We searched Pub Med, BNJ, CNCK database for domestic and foreign literature using the following keywords "aggression, expressive arts therapy, intervention", summarizes aggression mechanism, harm, and intervention measures, focused on the advantages of expressive art therapy intervention aggression, and the biological mechanism, psychological mechanism,Chinese medicine theory, and introduce some kinds of expressive art therapy intervention aggression: Music Therapy, Dance Therapy, Painting Therapy, Psychodrama. Lastly we have summarized the limitations of art therapy intervention. For the clinicians and therapists, this review is an introduction of the new and effective strategy to intervene aggression so as that aggression’s harm could be more effectively reduced.