The Positive Power of Art: Development of Positive Art Intervention to Promote Emotional Well-being in China

There is a rising concern about mental health in China in recent years – with increasing cases of depression, anxiety, stress, and sub-clinical levels of poor mental health conditions. This paper explores the potential to add to the list of potential solution strategies by proposing an innovative perspective that integrate the fields of positive psychology and art therapy to increase positive emotions and decrease negative ones. After extensive review on existing findings about theories and practices in each field, a new form of intervention – positive art intervention is formally introduced. Positive art intervention is an evidence-based practice aiming at promoting emotional well-being and balancing emotions for both clinical and non-clinical populations through different modalities of art engagement in a structured format. Potential strategies to design new positive art interventions are introduced and a call for further development of new positive art interventions is suggested