Swati Modh is part of the Office of Disability Inclusion at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru
Across India, psychologists, counsellors, and special educators are increasingly turning to expressive arts therapies to meet the diverse communication needs of people with disabilities, neurodivergence, and intersectional identities. For people who struggle with traditional talk therapy, whether due to speech disabilities, sensory processing differences, or trauma histories, creative modalities like collage, movement, adaptive music-making, and visual journaling offer powerful alternatives.
India has an estimated 18 million people with autism and 33 million with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to WHO projections and studies published by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in 2023. Therapeutic models have historically leaned on Eurocentric, talk-based interventions that may not align with the cognitive styles of neurodivergent. Expressive arts therapy, a form of psychotherapy that integrates creative modalities, such as drawing, music, dance, drama, and storytelling, is helping therapists reframe support from ‘correction’ to ‘connection’. They encourage clients to explore emotions through creative expression, for instance, using painting to visualise feelings, movement to release tension, or storytelling to find new perspectives for personal challenges.
During my work with a 7-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), I would reward him with sketch pens each time he completed math problems or English worksheets. He often engaged in nail art on himself or traced and decorated his hand on paper. His mood was clearly reflected in his behaviour: when happy, he expressed joy through his art, and when unsettled, he would engage in repetitive movements using waste materials, channelling his energy into building something new.
In India, children with speech delays, selective mutism (an anxiety disorder where a child cannot speak in some situations), or degenerative conditions (neurological disorders that cause a gradual decline or loss of function in the body or brain over time) often fall through the cracks of communication-heavy therapy models. The Avaz AAC app plays a pivotal role in enhancing communication for nonverbal students with autism in India, facilitating their engagement in movement, visual arts, and English learning. Tailored to support over 40,000 picture symbols and multiple Indian languages, the app enables users to express themselves through text-to-speech functionality and visual art elements, allowing them to create and share messages using colours, drawings, and symbols that reflect their emotions and cultural identity. In parallel, expressive arts therapy in India, exemplified by organisations like Swahansa Expressive Arts, integrates movement, music, and visual arts to support emotional and cognitive development in children with autism. These therapies aim to enhance motor coordination, focus, and social skills, aligning with the goals of Arts-Based Therapy (ABT) programmes that utilise art forms to achieve individualised therapeutic objectives.
Queer and disabled: rewriting the script
For queer disabled Indians, identity is often defined by erasure (ignoring, minimising, or denial of LGBTQ+ identities or experiences) socially, culturally, and medically. Queer people with disabilities find themselves excluded from both mainstream queer spaces (because of inaccessibility, lack of understanding) and from disability‐centred discourses (because of focus on ‘care’, ‘burden’, or ‘normalisation’). For example, NeuroQueer BrainBox, a monthly art‐based group therapy/workshop space in Bangalore, brings together neurodivergent LGBTQIA+ individuals to work through their lived experiences using art. Another example is Revival Disability India (RDI), a queer‐disabled collective, which is working with Nazariya Foundation to create resources for queer‐trans disabled folks, especially those escaping abusive natal/familial settings, platforms that allow them to define their own narratives rather than have them imposed.
Narrative testimony, zines, visual journals, and poetry workshops (for example, the Queer Scapes Project, which works through poetry and art in queer‐trans spaces) let people tell stories of discrimination, resistance, desire, legal exclusion, and self‐identity. For disabled queer individuals often excluded from both disability and queer spaces, writing becomes both shield and sword. Workshops hosted by organisations like Mariwala Health Initiative, Blue Dawn, and The Queer Muslim Project are encouraging young individuals to explore writing therapy, spoken word, and poetry as valid forms of emotional processing.
At the intersections of disability and queerness, expressive arts become tools for identity exploration and resistance. Queer disabled people often navigate multiple layers of marginalisation, for example, a non-binary person with chronic pain might have their symptoms dismissed by doctors who assume disability only affects cisgender people or be misdiagnosed because their experiences do not fit standard medical frameworks. They are also sidelined by normative narratives that prioritise ‘typical’ bodies, relationships, or sexualities, such as media and healthcare systems that normalise heterosexuality and able-bodiedness. In therapy, art can become a space of self-definition, allowing them to express identities and experiences that are otherwise misunderstood or ignored. India is witnessing a growing recognition of creative and expressive arts as vital tools in mental health support.
***The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or the positions of the organisation they represent.
