Santa Barbara, California, May 18 -- Counselors passed out art supplies at a Dallas mental health workshop last month, encouraging participants to express their emotions. One woman held up a collage with an image of a bare tree, without leaves or flowers.

She told the group, "This is how I felt when I lost my husband. I felt like someone shook me," and all her leaves and flowers fell away, recalled Maria Tovar, the social services director at Brother Bill's Helping Hand, a free clinic and food pantry.

The woman explained each stage of the collage before showing her final image from the session: a cherry blossom tree. "At the end, this is what I want to look like. This is what I'm working towards. I want to be able to blossom again," she...