More often, progress is a slow search with mini-breakthroughs.  I’ve noticed that sometimes it is so subtle that people themselves don’t see that they are changing. I worked with a girl who had significant concerns and her life was chaotic when I first met her. Her goal was to be “happy.”  Art helped her get her dark thoughts out of her head and onto paper, where they were harmless and could be put away in her special art folder.  Change and improvement for this person meant that she went from four or more hospitalizations a year, to two, to one.  Was she “happy?” No, not particularly.  Was there improvement?  Yes.