How Art Therapy Can Help Those Suffering From PTSD

 

Art therapy has enormous potential for healing troubled minds and souls when done professionally, and many find that working with an art therapist while suffering from PTSD can be a lifesaver.

What is PTSD?

Threatening or terrifying experiences like neglect, abuse, or war can leave traces that get stuck in a person’s bodily experiences, emotions, and memories, causing PTSD. This psychiatric disorder can cause symptoms such as re-experiencing trauma, anxiety or panic, reactivity or touchiness, dissociation or numbness, and memory lapses if triggered.

Common treatments include cognitive behavioral therapy or talk therapy, but they might not always be enough to address all the relevant areas, which is where art therapy steps in.

Understanding art therapy

Art therapy makes use of different creative mediums such as sculpture-making, coloring, painting, drawing, or even viewing art to help patients process traumatic events or provide them with an outlet for when words aren’t enough. Viewing still photographs or other pieces of art gives the eye some time to pause while the psyche processes traumatic memories, unearthing individual emotions and memories that are otherwise difficult to access.

Trauma is experienced through more than just words and needs different methods to address a person’s entire experience.

How does it help with PTSD?

Art therapy provides an effective and alternative outlet for expressing emotions and feelings, containing and separating the terrifying experiences from trauma in a powerful way. Art provides a voice to survivors and helps them make their memories, thoughts, emotions, and overall experience more visible when words aren’t enough.

Part of recovering from PTSD involves reclaiming the feeling of safety in your own body. Many survivors of PTSD find that they feel disassociated or disconnected from their bodies, which is usually the result of having felt physically unsafe or threatened throughout the duration of their traumatic events.

Art therapy is excellent for bodywork since it helps patients manipulate a piece of art that’s outside their bodies, externalizing the more difficult pieces of their traumatic stories and accessing their experiences in a safer manner.



Looking for healing photo art services?

Healing With Imagery has got you covered! Photographer couple Ann Dahlgren and Douglas Foulke are professional photographers in CT who provide the highest quality of nature and landscape photography services for hospitals, corporate spaces, and even homes to aid people with healing their bodies and minds. You can look at some of their latest installations here!

Contact them today for more details.


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