Exploring Emotional Regulation through Eco Art Therapy: A Phenomenological Study of College Students

Vollständiger Abstract

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University students in early adulthood face increasing academic, social, and existential pressures that intensify emotional vulnerability. While emotional distress among students is widely documented, limited research has explored integrative counseling approaches that simultaneously address expressive, ecological, and reflective dimensions of emotional regulation. This study investigates how students experience and interpret eco art therapy as they engage in emotional regulation within a prophetic counseling framework. Employing a qualitative phenomenological design, in-depth interviews were conducted with five undergraduate students who participated in eco art therapy sessions integrating creative art-making, interaction with natural elements, and reflective dialogue. Thematic analysis revealed three transformative stages: (1) humanization of emotion through the creation of a psychologically safe space for authentic emotional expression, (2) psychological liberation marked by the release of accumulated emotional tension, and (3) emotional transcendence characterized by increased reflective awareness and adaptive emotional response. The findings propose a data-supported conceptual model demonstrating that eco art therapy functions not merely as an expressive technique but as a transformative process linking aesthetic experience, ecological engagement, and reflective meaning-making. This study's novelty lies in integrating expressive art therapy, nature-based intervention, and prophetic counseling (humanization–liberation–transcendence) into a unified framework for emotional regulation in higher education. This integrative model contributes theoretically to contemporary emotional regulation discourse and offers a contextualized counseling innovation relevant to Islamic higher education institutions.