Painting Pain Away
Traumatic events alter every aspect of your life. Victims find it hard to discuss what happened to them and tend to keep things to themselves. How do we help someone heal in a unique and comfortable way? For younger victims, how do we get into their minds when they are too scared to speak?
Art Therapy is a way that victims of trauma can express themselves without words. By using art, they can express their emotions and tell their story. According to research, studies have suggested that some traumatic memories are stored nonverbally and may be retrieved through recollections of sensory, affective, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic elements (Campbell, 2016).
An example of this working successfully is “The Body Keeps The Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk. In this book, art therapy is used to express feelings. In one chapter, a young child witnessed the terrorist attacks on 9/11. He drew the planes crashing, fire and people jumping. The boy added a trampoline at the bottom of the drawing, so next time they could jump onto that. By creating art, he was able to process the event and incorporate his thoughts on how people could be saved next time (in his mind).
Another example from this book is asking a woman to draw a family portrait. Before drawing, she stated “must have had a good childhood”, but did not remember much. The drawing she made depicted a nightmare type situation. It showed a terrified child with a reference to sexual assault. By using art, this woman was able to unpack memories she had hidden.
Using art to communicate and heal is a cost effective way of communicating feelings. It is also available to everyone as anyone can create art in their own way. I hope to see this continue to be used in not only therapy, but school settings as well.
Cite:
Campbell, M., Decker, K. P., Kruk, K., & Deaver, S. P. (2016). Art Therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy for Combat-Related PTSD: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Art therapy : journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 33(4), 169–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2016.1226643
Van Der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps The Score. Penguin Books.