A Saudi Arabian counseling center is helping former Islamist extremists de-radicalize themselves with art therapy, NBC News reported.
Nearly 3,000 hopeful jihadists have been encouraged to express their grief and depression during art and therapy classes at Mohammad Bin Nayef Centers for Advice, Counseling and Care in Riyadh and Jeddah.
Therapists say expressing feelings through art gives the would-be terrorists, referred to as "beneficiaries" in the program, a cathartic release as they help them reenter mainstream society.
"It is their suffering that they are bringing out, and the art is giving them a chance to express their suffering and feelings," art therapist Awad al-Yami told NBC News.
Beneficiaries include former Guantanamo Bay prisoners and others who attempted to join extremist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. Some militants consider painting to be against Islam, so al-Yami has patients who have never picked up a brush before.
One of his beneficiaries, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, drew a somber watercolor with orange telephone poles on top of a cliff with a gray background.
"[The painter] was projecting his dark days in Guantanamo Bay," al-Yami told the station. "They are still projecting their past, and that's our job to take them out of their past little by little."
Another patient drew a mountain with a blue lake and green trees at the base - the scene of Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains where Osama bin Laden and his followers hid from American troops after 9/11.
The key to turning former grievance-filled jihadists into respected members of society is raising their self-esteem and making them feel as if they have a purpose in society. The program boasts an 87 percent success rate, officials say.
"Any problem we face in life they try to simplify for you and give you the right answers," Badr al-Anisi, a former patient who tried joining an extremist group in Iraq and Syria, told the station. He is now an imam at a mosque and is pursuing a Ph.D.
"It changed our vision and instead of dark and black, it became positive and optimistic," al-Anisi said.
