As an illustration, I would like to talk about a client that
I worked with a few years ago. I have chosen this particular case not only
because I believe in the efficacy of art therapy but also because I want to
highlight another important issue which is pervasive but often unaddressed or
ignored in our society, thus my intention is two pronged. The issue I am
referring to is abuse, physical, mental and sexual which often results in trauma
to the victim relative to the degree of the abuse.
I started working
with Tasha (pseudonym) when she was 5 years old. At 3 years of age Tasha had
suffered from horrendous sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Tasha who was
now living with her aunt (the abuse had been reported and the father
incarcerated) was brought for art therapy because she was unable to settle down
and form an attachment to the latter. Tasha had no conscious memory of the
abuse she had suffered many times, hence, when asked who her favourite person
was, she would reply, “my father”.
You may ask, what good could it have done poor Tasha to dig
up her abusive past through therapy? Why not let the trauma remain hidden? To
better understand why Tasha was brought for art therapy to process her trauma
and how it helped her, lets take a deeper look at the etiology of trauma.
 |
| Tasha's artwork |
Trauma is a psychological phenomenon caused by a distressing
and/or life threatening event that can cause chronic anxiety or Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) in it’s sufferer. Trauma can occur due various reasons,
the most common being: illness, accident, abuse, war, divorce, loss and so on.
Post trauma the victim goes through various phases such as denial,
anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. This is also called
processing the trauma or finding a resolution for it. However, in cases such as Tasha’s, the trauma occurred
in early childhood and was so severe that it became repressed or was wiped out
from her conscious memory.
Unprocessed trauma
can have long-term negative consequences, ranging from insecurity, emotional
numbing, anger/aggression, addiction, self-harm and nightmares etc. No matter what the intensity of the trauma or
it’s cause it is advisable not to ignore it’s occurrence.
Research
shows that when trauma occurs in childhood, its memories are stored in the
right hemisphere of the brain that is pre-verbal and not accessible through
language. Therefore, verbalizing the trauma is not possible just as
happened in Tasha’s case. In order to gain
access to Tasha’s memory of her abuse it became necessary to tap into
a part of her brain that was non-verbal where the trauma could be accessed
without re-traumatising her. Hence she was referred for art therapy. In order
for her to heal and to come to terms with what she had gone through, the
traumatic memories had to be reviewed at a non-verbal level first so that
eventually they could be transformed into non-traumatic memories or
contextualised in a way that would enable her to accept what had happened.
The time to
process trauma depends upon it’s severity and it would have required many years
of therapy for Tasha to come to terms with her abuse but at least coming for art therapy was a
start. I was able to see Tasha for a few months before I moved on to another
placement but I hope she continued on the journey that she had begun.
It is advisable to be vigilant around our families and
children and attend to signs of anxiety and/or stress without brushing them
aside. With children especially it is critical to equip them with the knowledge
of abuse/molestation and to inculcate in them trust and confidence to talk
about these issues if and when they occur. Even though some of us may not have
access to therapy or therapists, sometimes just opening up to a loved one and
talking through things can be liberating and therapeutic.
No comments:
Post a Comment