User:Gleneska7/Art therapy for trauma victims

Art therapy for abused adults and children

Art therapy for abused children and adults is an art based approach to healing that involves drawing, painting, and sculpture and in some alternative approaches, woodworking, welding, drama and dance. It is used for children and adults in many different situations; from emotionally abused to torture survivors and war veterans with PTSD. It can also be applied to people with mental disorders and diseases such as Aids patients and schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s sufferers. . Art therapy provides a safe non physical way to communicate what children and adults often cannot describe with words. Many psychologists take a medicinal or ‘shemanic’ approach to arts therapies. The argument is that the artistic process is inherently cathartic and is a beneficial emotional healing tool. It can provide a visual focus on details that encourage the victim to express their feelings and tell their story in a way that is manageable. Feder and Feder (1981) identify four main functions of art that favor its therapeutic application: Catharsis, mood change, self communication and interpersonal communication. A release of inner experience and feelings and the breakdown of defenses (Case &Daley, 1992) greater expressiveness is also seen as a bridge to improving self esteem, self empowerment, and self respect. (Henderson & Gladding 1998) Other theorists take a ‘mechanistic” approach, trying to separate the cognitive mechanisms that create the artistic expression. The most prominent theory being that artistic expression is a means of speaking to ones self, ones inner self, in order to relate and express thoughts and feelings that otherwise had no way of being expressed. So the idea of ‘mechanist approach to art therapy with trauma victims is that the feelings and expressions are far out of reach and the creative process is the only key to unlocking those feelings as opposed to the ‘shemanic” theory of art being the healing balm to a damaged soul.

The main idea of both approaches and the most relevant to arts therapy advocacy is that artistic expression and arts therapy can heal, it can reduce stress and anxiety and it just makes people feel better. References •	Case &Dalley, (1992) the handbook of art therapy Tavistock/Routledge, London •	Feder,E. & Feder, B. (1981) the expressive arts therapies, prentice-hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. •	Henderson, D, A & Gladding, S.T. (1998) the creative arts in counseling: A multicultural perspective, arts in psychotherapy, vol 25, no.3, pp. 183-187.