9:00 AM-5:00PM; Classroom, SIS 355
Hrach Gregorian, Ph.D.
Email: gregoria@american.edu
Telephone: 571-214-5293
AMERICA
(THE SOLDIER SAID)
I saw something burning on my chest and I tried to brush it off with my right hand but my arm wasn’t there.
David Plumb
Because you have listened to my story, I can let go of my demons.
-- from the Japanese folktale, ‘The Tale of Genji’ (Shikibu)
The theme of this Skills Institute is the use of writing and art to facilitate post-war healing. We examine forms of self-expression that can help to restore self-stability.
We proceed on the assumption that individual healing is one good path to community recovery and resilience.
The humanities are a rich, if an inexplicably muted color in the peacebuilding palette. Too often the practice of post-war healing is ceded to the sterile conventions of social science. Art is arguably the most reliable path to peace, personal and, potentially, communitarian. Arts-based approaches to healing and recovery employ a broad range of experiential, somatic forms of creative expression, “from visual and theatre arts to music, dance and poetry” (LeBaron).

Trauma, by its very nature, impedes coherent thought (Bromberg 2003). Revealing a traumatic experience induces feelings of shame. A threat to self-survival is inherent in the retelling of the experience. However, it may not be possible to rebuild the damaged self unless some way of expressing the experience is discovered.
Writing
Writing about perceptions and experiences allows one to manipulate and take control of previously overwhelming and unformed emotions. It is a key tool for sense making of chaotic internal and external conditions. Words feel “like tears,” relieving and soothing for one, but also providing an opportunity to reformulate overwhelming emotional reactivity into a semblance of ordered thought.
Art
It has been written that art has a special role in gaining access to traumatic images and memories. Artistic expression externalizes memories and painful experiences.
Art making can help to describe the indescribable, and to bring hidden memories to consciousness. In making visible that which is usually unseen – traumatic memories, psychological damage – art validates experience that defies articulation.
Preparatory Readings
The readings in each section have been kept to a minimum. It is recommended that you peruse these in the run up to the skills institute. You will find more resources in the bibliography at the end of the syllabus . All titles can be accessed through the AU library, or on line.
“Arts and Peacebuilding,” African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review , Vol. 5, No. 1,
Spring 2015. This entire volume is dedicated to the theme of art and peacebuilding . Articles explore theatrical performances in Kenya, “voice, memory, and healing” in Northern Uganda, “literature as witness” in Rwanda, among other topics.
Bromberg, P.M. (2003). Something Wicked This Way Comes: Trauma, Dissociation, and Conflict: The Space Where Psychoanalysis, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience
Overlap. Psychoanalytic Psychology.
, 20:558-574. http://www.wtcinyc.org/page38/files/DL-somethingFINAL.pdf
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Workshop Structure
Learning Objectives
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To enhance understanding of the impact of traumatic events on body and mind
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To reflect on strategies for practitioner self-care
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To learn about current practices in the use of the arts for post-conflict healing
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To experiment using various arts-based healing techniques
Schedule
Day I. Morning: Concepts and Cases
Overview of the use of the arts for healing, coexistence and reconciliation.
Discussion will be accompanies by case examples of the use of visual art, music, film, poetry and drama “...to appreciate each other’s humanity, mourn losses, an empathize with each other’s suffering...” (Cohen, p. 52).
Session Resources
Documentary: “Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience”
“War Veterans and PTSD.” The Huffington Post . Immerse yourself in the problematic through a perusal of the 17 short commentaries on this site. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/war-veterans-ptsd/
“Creative Approaches to Reconciliation.” Cohen, Cynthia. In The Psychology of
Resolving Global Conflicts: From War to Peace; Volume 3 Interventions , edited by Mari
Fitzduff and Christopher E. Stout, 69-102. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing
Group, 2005.
“I’d like to teach the World to Sing: Music and conflict transformation.” Bergh, Arlid.
Ph.D. thesis, University of Exeter, January 2010 https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10036/97884/BerghA.pdf?s
equence=2
Note, these citations also include extended bibliographies that will be of use to you.
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Day I. Afternoon: Writing to Recover: Poetry, Nature and Healing
Discussion of holistic healing through the uses of short stories and poetry to help war veterans and others traumatized by violence and conflict to express their feelings, recover the past, and make meaning of their experiences.
Session Resources
Guest Presenter: Frederick Foote , MD, author of the poetry collection Medic Against
Bomb , winner of the 2013 Grayson Books Poetry Prize. Fred is a retired physician who for the past fifteen years has dedicated his energies to the creation of holistic medicine programs, including arts and writing, to help heal the war wounded.
Session will include an interactive exercise followed by general discussion.
Day II. Morning: Remembering and Healing
Examination of arts approaches to remembering and healing in the aftermath of violent conflict. Traditional and nontraditional performances in Argentina, Serbia,
Cambodia, the U.S. and elsewhere will be viewed and analyzed. This session will include the use of a toolkit accompanying a documentary that includes discussion questions and guidelines for planning.
Session Resource
Documentary “Acting Together on the World Stage.”
Isabella A. Pericleous , 2011, Healing Through Movement: Dance/Movement
Therapy for Major Depression, Columbia University Academic Commons, http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:12644.
Day II. Afternoon: Unfreezing Memory: the Visual Arts and Music
The session will center on the use of visual arts and music to help war trauma sufferers release “the frozen trauma, the frozen memory” they have internalized.
Session Resources
Guest Presenter: Melissa S. Walker , MA, ATR, is a nationally registered art therapist with experience in the use of the creative arts with military service members and their dependents. Melissa is the Creative Arts Therapist and Healing Arts Program
Coordinator for the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at the Walter Reed
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National Military Medical Center. She has been profiled in the Washington Post , the
Partnership for Public Service's "Federal Faces," and ABC's "Working Women."
Session will include a hands-on exercise.
Guest Presenter: Rebecca Vaudreuil , MA, earned her undergraduate degree at
Berklee College of Music and graduate degree at Harvard University. She pioneers military music therapy by developing national music therapy programs and publishing resources on this topic. She is the author of Group Music Therapy
Interventions: Working in Neurologic Rehabilitation .
Session to involve a class participation segment.
Eberhard Riedel (2013): “My African Journey: Psychology, Photography, and Social
Advocacy,” Psychological Perspectives: A Quarterly Journal of Jungian Thought , 56:1,
5-33 http://www.cameraswithoutborders.org/imagesforweb/Homepage/RiedelE2013P
P56.pdf
Melissa Brown, “Understanding the Value of Art Therapy,” Artsblog , May 13, 2013 http://blog.artsusa.org/2013/05/13/understanding-the-value-of-art-therapy/
Capps, Ron. (2011). Writing War: A Guide to Telling Your Own Story . CreateSpace
Independent Publishing Platform.
Foote, Frederick. (2014). Medic Against Bomb: A Doctor’s Poetry of War . W. Hartford,
CT: Grayson Books.
Lyon, William S. (1996). Encyclopedia of Native American Healing . New York: W.W.
Norton.
Scurfield, Raymond M., and Theresa Patoni. (2013). Healing War Trauma: A
Handbook of Creative Approaches . New York: Routledge.
Vaudreuil, Rebecca. (2010). Group Music Therapy Interventions . San Diego, CA:
MusicWorx Inc.
State of the Art -- The Arts and Peacebuilding: An Emerging Approach (USIP) http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Insights_Summer-2015-Arts-
Peacebuilding.pdf
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Pathways to embodied empathy and reconciliation after atrocity: Former boy soldiers in a dance/movement therapy group in Sierra Leone by David Alan
Harris
“A time limited dance/movement therapy group, facilitated by adult males, provided creative movement opportunities and other embodied healing activities for adolescent orphans who, as boys, had been involved in wartime atrocities. This fusion of Western trauma treatment and ritual proved transformative in helping the youths overcome violent impulses and rediscover the pleasure of collective endeavor. Engaging in symbolic expression through attunement and kinaesthetic empathy enabled the teenagers to reflect on their personal involvement in armed conflict in a way that encouraged enhanced awareness of belonging to the broader humanity. The intervention therefore fostered conditions that led participants to create a public performance highlighting their dual roles as both victims and perpetrators in the war. This, in turn, advanced their reconciliation within the local community.” http://www.interventionjournal.com/sites/default/files/harris.pdf
Presentation about the reading : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGSi1IbAL-o
Videos
Musicians Without Borders -- From Woman to Woman in Bosnia and
Herzegovina
“From Woman to Woman will produce a pool of trained local workshop leaders to lead music and dance workshops and activities with women who are still haunted by traumatic experiences of violence, dislocation and loss of loved ones during the ethnic ‘cleansing’ especially in the Srebrenica region. Parallel with the didactic/ artistic/ therapeutic training, the project will focus on creating a local project management team with skills in organization, logistics, public relations, communication and fundraising.”
Video & Website: https://www.musicianswithoutborders.org/projects/fromwoman-to-woman/overview/
Darfur Drawn -- Human Rights Watch
“Human Rights Watch researchers Dr. Annie Sparrow and Olivier Bercault visited
Chad in February 2005 to assess the issues of protection and sexual violence in the refugee camps along the Darfur/Chad border. As Sparrow and Bercault visited schools in refugee camps in Chad, many children between the ages of 8 and 17 shared the drawings they had done in their school notebooks, often alongside their lessons in Arabic or math. Schoolchildren from seven refugee camps and the border town of Tine offered Human Rights Watch’s researchers hundreds of drawings in
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the hope that the rest of the world would see their stories as described in their own unique visual vocabulary of war.”
Drawings : https://www.hrw.org/legacy/photos/2005/darfur/drawings/
Video : https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/arts-and-health/200805/whentrauma-happens-children-draw-part-ii
AptArt -- DRC
“AptART works alongside centers for vulnerable children providing workshops focusing on peace and national unity. The workshops consist of portrait painting as well as large-scale murals aimed at improving the environment the children call home. Children in the DRC struggle daily with extremely challenging circumstance.
Countless studies have shown art to be a powerful tool in promoting healthy mental development of children. AptART provides art projects that allow them to share and interpret their experiences as well as an escape from the difficulties of their daily lives.”
AptArt Website for DRC http://www.aptart.org/project/democratic-republic-ofcongo-2/
Video #1 : https://vimeo.com/52584585
Video #2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJpq0ta8c0A
Healing through Art -- UNICEF Jordan
“This film highlights the role of art in the healing process for children affected by war and displacement. In Azraq refugee camp, Jordan, children paint a mural to express their feelings and emotions. There are more than 300,000 Syrian children in need of psychosocial support in Jordan.”
Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xclJ0D3sw64
Save the Children Lebanon’s Animation Project
“Animator Diaa Malaeb, who has worked with refugee children for Save the Children
Lebanon's Animation Project, said in his experience it was possible to empower teens by using the camera as a vehicle to connect. Art is an international tool and language that can be used by anyone, and reaches everyone without any chains. Art in general is an easy, safe and participatory tool to use with children, especially refugees, where through it they release their stress, overcome their fears and talk about their experience without exposing them to any risks,” Malaeb explained.
"When they see that others are listening to and appreciating them, this gives them confidence and self-esteem to overcome the trauma they passed through during war."
Article : http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/art-based-therapyyoung-refugees-can-art-save-lives-903218945
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Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qmRz8uZZPc
Bright Future -- Saving Syria’s Refugee Children
“In global health, mental illness has historically taken a back seat to more deadly medical concerns like infectious diseases. But aid organizations, local charities and independent doctors have often intervened during crises to address one of the most disabling psychological problems of all: trauma, whether from rape, natural disasters or civil war. One such effort, Syria Bright Future, is based in Jordan and run by Dr. Mohammad Abo-Hilal, a Syrian psychiatrist. It is focused on helping Syrian refugees, particularly children.”
Article : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/health/treating-the-trauma-ofyoung-syrian-refugees.html?_r=0
Video : http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000003764769/saving-syriasrefugee-children.html
Art Therapy Helps Reform Terrorists in Saudi Arabia
Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QllcjRnyozQ&index=9&list=PL8B88609C153F
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Websites
Grading policy: Students enroll on a Pass/Fail basis. Absence from either of the two classes due to circumstances within a student’s control will result in a failing grade; students who miss class due to circumstances beyond their control – such as illness, accident, religious observance, or representing the university at off-campus activities – must present reasonable documentation of their excuse for absence and will be required to submit assignments by a date agreed upon with the instructor.
Active, regular participation in group activities as well as deep engagement in course discussions reflecting an understanding of the readings are required to receive a passing grade for participation.
Academic Integrity: Standards of academic conduct are set forth in the University’s
Academic Integrity Code. By registering, you have acknowledged your awareness of the Academic Integrity Code, and you are obliged to become familiar with your
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rights and responsibilities as defined by the Code. Violations of the Academic
Integrity Code will not be treated lightly, and disciplinary actions will be taken should such violations occur. Please see me if you have any questions about the academic violations described in the Code in general or as they relate to particular requirements for this course.
Emergency preparedness for disruption of classes: In the event of an emergency,
American University will implement a plan for meeting the needs of all members of the university community. Should the university be required to close for a period of time, we are committed to ensuring that all aspects of our educational programs will be delivered to our students. These may include altering and extending the duration of the traditional term schedule to complete essential instruction in the traditional format and/or use of distance instructional methods.
Specific strategies will vary from class to class, depending on the format of the course and the timing of the emergency. Faculty will communicate class-specific information to students via AU e-mail and Blackboard, while students must inform their faculty immediately of any absence. Students are responsible for checking their
AU e-mail regularly and keeping themselves informed of emergencies. In the event of an emergency, students should refer to the AU Student Portal, the AU Web site
(www. prepared. american.edu) and the AU information line at (202) 885-1100 for general university-wide information, as well as contact their faculty and/or respective dean’s office for course and school/college-specific information.
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