Art Therapy for Abused Children
Art therapy is a psycho therapeutic discipline using plastic and graphic art expression as a means of expressing thoughts and feelings that an individual may be unable or unwilling to verbalize (Di Maria pp). Each client's diagnosis, needs, interests, and capabilities are formulated in the goals of the therapy (Di Maria pp). Art therapists encourage their clients to express personal concerns through the creation of art, and the work can be viewed as a tangible record of progress, as well as an indication of where further therapeutic interventions should take place (Di Maria pp). This art may server as a springboard for verbal communication and also a source of pride of accomplishment for the client (Di Maria pp). Audrey Di Maria says that children often come to their first art therapy session expecting to fail because they are afraid of messing up or that their work will be compared unfavorably to work by other children (Di Maria pp). As an art therapist it is important to help children see how special and extraordinary their own ideas are (Di Maria pp). The goal of art therapy is to celebrate the diversity of each child's unique crease and help raise his or hers sense of self-esteem (Di Maria pp).
There have been many examples of drawings by children that have been erroneously interpreted as supporting a conclusion of sexual abuse (Drawings pp). For example, one seven-year old girl who drew a picture of herself and her sister with their hands in the air and the father standing next to them smiling told the psychologist that she and her sister were "cheering at a show," however the therapist claimed the picture actually indicated a "helpless posture," especially because the children in the drawing had no fingers on their hands, while the hands of the father were large (Drawings pp). The psychologist claimed that abused children typically put large hands on the drawings of their perpetrators (Drawings pp). Moreover, she claimed that the thick lines in the crotch of the father was meant to emphasis the penis and show the child's anxiety about the father (Drawings pp). Although the child continued to deny allegations that her father had sexually abused her, the therapist concluded that in fact she had been sexual abused by him (Drawings pp). According to Kasia Kozlowska, creating art is pleasurable and provides a contrary experience to the associated trauma, thus facilitating desensitization and processing of traumatic memories (Kozlowska pp). The actual art paper or work of art may act as a transitional space where intolerable feelings are able to be externalized in a concrete form that can then be manipulated, returned to and reworked as part of the therapeutic process (Kozlowska pp). Kozlowska points out that children are more likely to cope better with adverse events if they have an internal locus of control, and a strong sense of self-efficacy (Kozlowska pp). It is however, well documented that children have an increased tendency to recollect traumatic experiences as visual images that are portrayed through art, and artistic expression following a traumatic experience (Kozlowska pp). smoke trails coming out of the chimney" (Drawings pp). wedge-shaped windows, extraneous circles
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Approximate Word count = 1360
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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