Artistic expressions are a non-discursive symbolic language and promote the understanding of human experience. In the 19th and 20th centuries, outsider artists admitted to psychiatric hospitals offered a contribution to the exploration of the psyche without however activating processes of institutional change. In the second half of the 20th century, first in the Anglo-Saxon context, the creative experiences have been developed in different fields. In Italy the start of a radical deinstitutionalization work in psychiatry leads to the recognition of the creative process as a therapeutic resource. After approval of law 180, expressive activities have had a significant development in the clinical and welfare fields as a factor of evolution, cure and social inclusion.