An earlier version of this page told people experiencing signs of trauma or PTSD to consider buying a paint by numbers kit, and said science had proved it worked. That was wrong, and we have removed it.
We are a company that sells painting kits. We are not qualified to advise anyone on trauma, and this page should never have read as though we were. What follows is what art therapy in trauma care actually involves, what the retracted claims got wrong, and the much smaller and more honest place an ordinary hobby occupies.
If you need help
In the United States, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day by call or text to 988. For trauma and PTSD specifically, there are treatments with a substantial evidence base behind them — cognitive processing therapy, prolonged exposure, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and EMDR among them — and they are delivered by trained clinicians. A family doctor is a reasonable place to start. If you are a veteran, the VA has dedicated PTSD services.
None of that is something a craft kit substitutes for, and the honest risk of pages like the one this used to be is that they make buying something feel like taking action.
What art therapy in trauma care actually is
Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy delivered by a credentialed practitioner. In the United States that means the ATR or ATR-BC credential from the Art Therapy Credentials Board, usually alongside state licensure. It is a master's-level clinical profession, not a technique you apply to yourself at a kitchen table.
Where it is used in trauma work, it is generally as one part of a treatment plan, and it is delivered in a trauma-informed way — meaning pacing, safety and the client's control over the process are managed deliberately by someone trained to manage them. The art is a medium for clinical work that a therapist is holding. Take the therapist out and what remains is art, which may be lovely and is not the therapy.
The claims we removed, and why
Worth setting out rather than quietly deleting, because these particular claims circulate widely.
"Trauma is stored in the right hemisphere, speech in the left"
This is a version of the left-brain/right-brain story, and the popular form of it — logical left, creative right — is a myth. Language is indeed strongly lateralized in most people, but creativity is not a right-hemisphere function, and traumatic memory is not filed in one half of the brain. The research the old page linked to was about how memory is encoded in particular brain states, which is a genuinely interesting finding and not the one it was being used to support.
"Decades of research have proven art influences neuroendocrine pathways to improve sleep, blood pressure and immune response"
Sweeping physiological claims, sourced to advocacy pages and a beauty portal rather than to any study. Removed.
"Paint by numbers reduces panic and hypervigilance"
Those are clinical symptoms. Nothing supports a craft kit affecting them, and implying it does could plausibly lead somebody to delay real treatment.
Five kits "to help overcome trauma"
Four were other companies' products and one was ours, each with an assigned symbolic meaning — a lion for inner strength, irises for hope. Selling a painting as a route out of trauma is not something we are prepared to do.
A caution that genuinely matters
There is one thing worth saying that the old page had backwards. For someone carrying trauma, open-ended creative work is not automatically safe. Unstructured art-making can surface difficult material without warning, and doing that alone, without support in place, can be destabilizing rather than helpful.
This is precisely why art therapy is delivered by someone trained, and why "just start painting your feelings" is poor advice to give a stranger on the internet. If you are in treatment and thinking about using art between sessions, that is a good conversation to have with your therapist, who knows your situation and can tell you what would help.
Where a numbered canvas honestly fits
Modestly, and as a hobby.
A numbered canvas is highly structured and entirely predictable. There is nothing to decide, nothing to express, no blank page and no way to get it wrong. Some people recovering from difficult periods find that structure easier to be around than free painting, for the same reason a great many people find it calming generally: the deciding has been done for you.
What that offers is an absorbing, low-demand way to spend an evening, a reason to sit down, and something finished at the end. Those are real and ordinary goods. They are the same goods a jigsaw or a garden offers, and we would say the same about either.
What it does not offer is treatment, processing, or a route through anything. If the structure appeals, our range is here and our guide to choosing an easy kit covers what makes a design forgiving. Buy it because you would like to paint something.
Common questions
Is art therapy effective for PTSD?
It is used as part of trauma care and practitioners report it helps, particularly where talking is difficult. The research base is still developing and is thinner than for the established trauma-focused therapies. It is best thought of as something that may sit alongside those rather than instead of them, and it is a question for a clinician rather than for us.
How do I find a qualified art therapist?
Look for the ATR or ATR-BC credential and check your state's licensure requirements. Ask specifically about trauma-informed training, since it is a distinct competency.
Is doing art at home bad for me, then?
No. Making things is good for most people most of the time. The point is only that it is a hobby rather than a treatment, and that if you are dealing with something serious it should not be standing in for care.
Why leave the retraction on the page?
Because the claims were live here for a long time and are still repeated elsewhere, and because deleting them quietly seemed worse than saying plainly that we got it wrong.
