~ Art Therapy ~
Building a Bridge
from
Trauma to Wellness
Art Therapy
makes the unconscious
conscious.
It builds
_…a bridge…_
between
the internal
and
the external
worlds.
Art Therapy aims:
• to create circumstances through which healing can
occur using art.
• to heal by creating pathways into the worlds of
individuals and groups which allow them to map and
dialogue with aspects of themselves and their world
using art.
• to heal by setting up conditions which facilitate the
bridging of worlds so that healing occurs through the
transcendence of alienation – self-alienation and social
alienation.
• to facilitate self-realisation which moves people
towards a higher level of functioning in which their
resources and potentials are recognised and integrated.
• to create growth, personal power and meaning.
• to facilitate soul work wherein the principles which
vitalise us and assist our living fully are discovered,
engaged and expressed.
Art Therapy enhances:
Mindfulness
Recognition of process
Sensory and psychological
integration
Perspective
Mind/body connection
Self-esteem
Trust in self
The creative imagination
Pattern recognition
It slows time
It connects time and place
Art Therapy diminishes:
Stress
Helplessness
[especially learned helplessness]
Hopelessness
Depression
Anxiety
Confusion
Art Therapy and Trauma
Art Therapy has been used
effectively in working with:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Victims of natural disasters
Victims of war
Refugees
War veterans suffering PTSD
Victims of domestic violence
Cancer patients
Despair =
Suffering
without Meaning
Victor Frankel
Art Therapy is a means to
enable people to find
meaning in their
suffering. It helps them to
see and to tell their story
from a place of deeper
understanding.
Art Therapy reveals
what we don’t know
we don’t know.
“We carry within us the
wonders we seek without;
there is all Africa and her
prodigies in us.”
Carl Gustav Jung
Art Therapy
and Resilience
Definition: the ability to recoil or spring back
into shape after bending, stretching, or
being compressed; the ability to withstand
or recover quickly from difficult conditions.
Resiliency Traits:
Optimistic, responsible, creative, synergistic,
professional, quick learner, flexible, self-motivated
[www.ResiliencyCenter.com]
How to use Art Therapy in developing these
traits?
Art Therapy and the Brain
Research conducted by
Christopher Belkofer, an art
therapist, and Lukasz Konopka, a
neuroscientist, at Hines Veteran’s
Hospital in Illinois, used an EEG to
show differences in the patterns of
electrical activity of a participant’s
brain following one hour of painting
and drawing.
Art Therapy and Memory
Eric Kandel, an Austrian
psychiatrist, discovered that the
emotional charge of a fearful or
anxious memory in the amygdala
is lessened when that memory
becomes conscious. Bringing
the unconscious into conscious
awareness helps dissipate the
intense emotional charge around it.
Art Therapy enables this to happen
in a particularly effective way.
Art Therapy and
Hurricane Katrina
One of the most common images in
children’s art is the house: a square topped
by a pointy roof, doors and windows. Art
therapists noticed that for many of the
young victims of Hurricane Katrina, the
house had morphed into a triangle. They
realized the internal schema of these
children had changed. They weren’t
drawing the house as a place of safety, they
were drawing the roof rising above the
water line. Over time, as the children
healed, their drawings returned to the box
and pointy roof design.
Art Therapy exercises:
Scribble drawings
Public Face/Private Face
Waking Up to Emotions
The Heroic Journey
The Loyal Soldier
The Room Where All Is
Always Well
Fear
‘Fear has a large shadow but he himself is quite small.
He has a vivid imagination. He composes horror music
in the middle of the night. He is not very social and he
keeps to himself at political meetings. His past is a
mystery. He warned us not to talk to each other about
him, adding that there is nowhere any of us could go
where he wouldn’t hear us. We were quiet. When we
began to talk to each other, he changed. His manners
started to seem pompous and his snarling voice
sounded rehearsed. Two dragons guard Fear’s
mansion. One is ceramic and Chinese. The other is
real. If you make it past the dragons and speak to
him close up, it is amazing to see how fragile he is. He
will try to tell you stories. Be aware. He is a master of
disguises and illusions. Fear almost convinced me that
he was a puppet-maker and I his marionette. Speak
out boldly, look him in the eye. Startle him. Don’t give
up. Win his respect and he will never bother you with
small matters.’
J. Ruth Gendler, The Qualities.
The Heroic Journey
1. A place, time and characters are described – as
normal, settled, peaceful, in good order.
2. Then crisis occurs [a giant, a plague, a witch, a
flood, a cyclone, a tsunami, etc.]
3. A descent, a collapse of the previous reality.
Metaphorically – the falling/the fall, being lost,
darkness, ignorance, heaviness, illness, chaos.
4. Nadir – until ultimate chaos and even death
[bodily and/or spiritually] may occur.
5. A turning point where guidance is given, power
returns, gifts are received.
6. Discovery of the pathway to return or renewal –
rising, finding the way, illumination, knowledge,
gnosis, lightness, health/well-being, order.
7. The world returns to its original order or a new
order is created.
The Heroic Journey
Permits the recognition of alchemical
transformation - turning base metals
into gold. Recognition of the Nadir when the only way is up - as not
only the Void but as a place of
potential transformation, can act as
a shield against suicidal impulses.
Seeing trauma as a process - i.e. as
inherently containing movement, as
something through which one moves
- allows a sense of ongoingness
rather than reaching a dead end. It
can enable a sense of psychological/
symbolic death and rebirth.
Jo’s Heroic Journey
The Loyal Soldier
The Loyal Soldier is a psychological construct developed by
Bill Plotkin. It is 'a courageous, wise, and stubborn subpersonality that formed during our childhood and created
a variety of strategies to help us survive the realities
(often dysfunctional) of our families and culture. It keeps
us “safe” by making us small or limited, or by further
traumatizing us. It is the intrapsychic element that
shovels chunks of our wholeness into our Shadow so that
we will appear acceptable or invisible to the powers that
be.'
It’s usually - but not necessarily - in childhood that we
draw up barriers/barricades to protect us. Can you
remember when the Loyal Soldier came into your life and
protected you? When you shut down? How does that
impact on your life now even though the danger is past?
The Loyal Soldier can be seen as useful or not useful
depending on the situation -> being able to discriminate,
discern rather than it being an automatic knee-jerk
reaction over which you have no control.
Jo’s Loyal Soldier
~ Thank You ~
Karen Adler
Dip. Transpersonal Art Therapy
Grad. Dip. Material Anthropology
Email: karenadler222@gmail.com
PH: 0420 593 121