Art Therapy as Cumulative Trauma Repair

Book excerpt: This book explores the effectiveness of art therapy as treatment for cumulative trauma survivors. Bringing together case studies, research, and the author’s clinical and personal experience, it outlines different clinical approaches as well as numerous art therapy interventions that are processed through somatic, metaverbal, and narrative means. It further aims to answer the question of “how art therapy works,” by pairing aspects of Lusebrink’s Expressive Therapies Continuum with Perry’s four functional domains (from the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics) to demonstrate how these practices may increase relational capacity and the patient’s access to higher level functioning, in turn, decreasing trauma responses. Foregrounding a person-centered and multi-dimensional approach to trauma repair and creative interventions, this book will appeal to postgraduate students in art therapy and counselling, as well as professionals and researchers in somatic work and trauma specialties.