Art Therapy

Spiritual abuse (SA) is a pervasive problem within Christianity. Although SA can be found alongside other forms of abuse, SA is an insidious form of abuse that assaults its victims and leaves profound emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounds. Research studies gathered in the last years have found the effects of SA to resemble those of trauma and Complex PTSD. Currently, there are very limited resources available on how to address the effects of SA and religious trauma (RT). Because trauma often resides in the preverbal and sensory parts of the brain, art therapy has been found to be a successful and appropriate treatment modality for working with trauma victims. This paper presents an art therapy curriculum designed to provide an initial treatment modality for art therapists working with victims of SA/RT.

Hospitals are stressful and fast-paced environments for children who are confined to inpatient stays and have continued medical care. Siblings of medically compromised patients are overlooked and suffer mental health problems due to vicarious trauma, changes in family dynamics and challenges with identity formation. Throughout this paper, the mental health challenges of this population are explored alongside the history of medical art therapy and the uses of applying this strategy with this population. This resource aims in helping siblings of medically compromised patients within an 11-session flexible group to focus on challenges faced by this population. This resource also provides the reader with directives and goals of each intervention to allow understanding and knowledge of how to guide a session facilitated by individuals who are art therapy students or art therapists.

This paper was written to broaden understanding of the pressing need for an AT curriculum to address the stabilizing phase prior to people using eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) to treat a diagnosis of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Complex PTSD is a separate condition from PTSD, according to the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11). Complex PTSD requires additional time in the stabilization phase of trauma treatment, before doing EMDR. Those with Complex PTSD lack skills in emotional regulation, having and maintaining relationships, and in feeling safe. These skills are required for EMDR, which is a top-tier trauma treatment with a high success rate. Art Therapy (AT) provides a bottom-up, developmentally sensitive approach to trauma, and like Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation (STAIR), can be used to supplement EMDR in the preparation phase to build the skills necessary for the treatment. The curriculum will include 12 sessions, each session addressing the skills of emotional regulation, relationship building and maintaining, safety, and self-esteem. There will be flexibility within the curriculum to spend more time or less time in each section, based on the individual’s needs. The curriculum is designed to make one of the first-line, evidence-based treatments, EMDR, more accessible to those with Complex PTSD.

Daycares are, for some children, to enhance learning before entering school and as a safe space to go to after school. Not all children can go to daycare but of the ones that do, the emotional and behavioral issues that arise during the day have become overlooked. Through this proposal, the preschool stages of development are analyzed, behaviors that occur in children of this age and how they are being helped specifically, are explored. This proposal also addresses the most common behavioral and emotional problems as well as recognizing the skills that art helps develop in preschool children. This project will present a resource/curriculum designed specifically around the preschool child who displays emotional and behavioral problems in the classroom. This resource/curriculum will be able to support the child through art as therapy practices that addresses emotional regulation and behavioral issues by giving them an outlet that is appropriate to display the emotions that they are feeling and going through. This resource/curriculum aims to work through, talk about and show children of this age group, how to get through their emotional and behavioral upsets through art as therapy.

The purpose of this research is to create module-based art therapy grief interventions for parentally bereaved gifted students that can facilitate positive adaptation and personal growth and decrease future negative mental health risks resulting from their loss experience. Many gifted children possess distinctive affective attributes that shape their personalities that can hinder their opportunities to process loss if not understood within the context of their individual socio-emotional needs. Differentiated approaches to art therapy interventions can provide a means for processing loss while also attending the developmental, intellectual, and creative domains of gifted children. Spirituality, which is often one aspect explored in existential questioning, can be a protective factor. Art therapy and other expressive therapies facilitate such exploration, support meaning-making and, thus, can initiate individual growth.