By Nadine Crescenzi June 5, 2022
Trauma disconnects us and keeps us stuck—art awakens the imagination, moves us and reconnects us to ourselves.
(#posttraumaticgrowth #healingtrauma #arttherapy)
Life does not stop post-trauma—days pass and trauma gets tucked deep within us. Maté (2020) explains that “Trauma is a psychic wound that hardens you psychologically that then interferes with your ability to grow and develop.” Trauma is intense stress to our mind and body, from exposure to a traumatic or life threatening event, multiple events or ongoing complex trauma throughout our life. According to van der Kolk (1998) traumatization is a result of ineffective internal and external coping mechanisms when under threat. We move forward in our life with the survival skills we have acquired in childhood. These tools may have helped us survive in childhood, but may be maladaptive as adults. Van der Kolk (2014) explains that patterns such as rage, shutting down, compliance or defiance are established in childhood to survive. Due to trauma, parts of us get stuck without progress, stuck in a reactive response to certain experiences or stimuli. These reactive cycles can go on for years, even a lifetime unconsciously. According to Levine (2020), trauma is something that occurs in the brain and the body. Trauma gets stuck below our awareness; our body responds to these perceived threats automatically by sending a danger signal to our brain. Our body reacts temporarily by activating the fight-flight-freeze response or by shutting down altogether (Levine, 2020). According to Legg (2020) the fight-flight-freeze is a primitive, instinctual biological survival response which releases a cascade of hormones and stimulates physiological changes to perceived danger. Our thoughts alone can trigger our fight-flight-freeze response. Rodski (2019) explains our unconscious mind cannot recognize the difference between a real danger and what our imagination perceives as dangerous. “Because trauma happens primarily on an instinctive level, the memories we have of overwhelming events are stored as fragmentary experience in our bodies, not in the rational parts of our brain” (Levine, 2008). Trauma is not rational or logical—it is incomprehensible to the mind. According to Perry (2006), when the brain experiences intense stress or trauma, it shuts down the cortical regions of the brain, impairing cognitive and executive functioning. In this state the brain relies on the limbic system—the emotional region of the brain to survive. Remaining in this aroused state long term can cause permanent changes to the brain structure stimulating reactivity, impulsivity, and aggression—impairing our ability to think and speak. In turn, this also reduces our capacity to be compassionate (Perry, 2006). When we are stuck in these trauma-cycles, we are not thinking outside ourselves, we are trying to comprehend how we can survive in this moment. Therefore we are focused on ourselves and not others. Like an artist’s block, trauma causes something within to be inaccessible, causing paralysis in certain aspects of one's life—stuck without movement. The pain of this traumatic wound is incomprehensible, and we protect this fragility with strong defenses, so we never have to experience this suffering again. However, repressing this trauma deep within does not make it untouchable, eventually this protected space will be stimulated, and we will respond to the pain with the emotional mind, impairing the ability to rationally interact with self and others. Trauma interrupts the mind-body-spirit connection and alters our way of being and interacting with others and the world. Trauma impacts our perception and imagination, and yet imagination is integral to our quality of life and our ability to move forward and be creative. “Traumatized people become stuck, stop in their growth because they can’t integrate new experiences into their lives... organizing your life as if the trauma were still going on” (van der Kolk, 2015).
“Our conscious memory is full of gaps, of course, which is actually a good thing. Our brain filters out the ordinary and expected, which is utterly necessary to allow us to function” (Perry, 2006). According to van der Kolk (2015) we do not remember tragedy through words—the verbal part of the brain shuts down. Trauma is stored as body-sensations and visual memories; through the art process a storyline begins to unfold and at the end of the creative process you have your complete story (van der Kolk, 2015). According to Perry (2020) experience can change the stress response system, this is known as state functioning. Through the artmaking process we enter a calm state, we are able to self-regulate, and our mind becomes flexible and reflective, accessing the higher regions of the brain. Van der Kolk (2015) explains the neurobiology of trauma is that it blocks the imagination process. We need our imagination to create our vision and to be able to add onto it, this is powerful because we 'live by our imaginations' (van der Kolk, 2015). Imagination enables us to fantasize and envision possibilities; without it we lose mental flexibility and hope (van der Kolk, 2015). This is relevant because imagination helps us heal by building onto our vision little by little, offering hope, renewing faith, and allowing an opening to see beyond the trauma. Cane (1951) expresses that imagination is central to creating art. Imagination provides foresight; it lets us dream about the way things can be, the places we can go and the things we can do. Imagination opens us up to see with hope, love, joy, curiosity, and wonder, allowing creativity to flourish. “Imagination is an instrument of faith. This faith becomes concretized—becomes something that can be seen, heard, felt, touched, smelled, perhaps tasted—through the act of making” (Moon, 2001). Without the capacity to imagine and create we are stuck, and as with trauma, stuck in a reactive cycle. “Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences” (Brown, 2012). Miraculously through creativity we can develop an empathetic understanding—accessing our consciousness and altering our perspective (Rogers, 1993). This allows us to see the strength in our openness, the ability to be more aware of our emotions instead of needing to hide them. When we are more aware of our emotional landscape, we have more control over it. In turn, revealing our truth allows for self-acceptance and self-compassion. According to Rogers (2016), the arts utilize the mind, body, and emotions, through the non-verbal creative and imagination process, as a tool for self-exploration and communication. The creative process capitalizes on the nonverbal and nonlinear function of the brain's right hemisphere enabling a person to go beyond the problem and discover answers and one’s potential (Rogers, 2016).
Art changes the brain, enhancing intelligence, health, and happiness, stimulating our reward system, and increasing dopamine production which improves our overall health and wellbeing (Magsamen, 2020). Artmaking is rhythmic, Perry (2021) explains that somatosensory regulation—rhythmic activity—accesses and opens the cortex, the reasoning parts of the brain and enables us to self-regulate our overactive and reactive response. “Recovery from trauma involves the restoration of executive functioning and, with it, self- confidence and the capacity for playfulness and creativity” (van der Kolk, 2015). In addition, pleasure and play through the process of artmaking enhance positive left hemisphere emotions, altering perception, action, and social possibilities (Hass-Cohen et al., 2015 as cited in King, 2016). Scientific research shows art enhances brain function; according to King (2016) art therapy decreases negative emotions through positive emotional regulation, creativity, and resiliency, strengthening executive functioning skills, creative thinking and problem solving. According to Leavy (2017) art can “... grab hold of our attention, provoke us, or help to transport us. Our response may be visceral, emotional, and psychological, before it is intellectual.” Art is a refuge—a sanctum, connecting deep within, to one's inner-thoughts, faith, trust, beliefs and hopes without judgment, enabling one to self-regulate and feel safe within themselves. This process naturally bypasses defenses and frees creation and self-expression. Through observation, one witnesses their art facilitating creation (Kapitan, 2017). The art-making process creates space for something to occur and evolve. Creativity is movement and movement is transformative. When we find exactly where we’re stuck, the energy is ready to continue, move, complete, and become unstuck (Levine, 2008). The art itself will conceivably facilitate greater insight, self-awareness, and spiritual connection, enabling one to witness the transformative properties of the art phenomenon. The canvas therefore, becomes a space to acknowledge and work through memories, experiences, and trauma concretely— allowing an introspective process to naturally occur. The creative process is a way to put chronological order to past fragmented experiences and help the mind comprehend, consolidate, and integrate memories and experiences, enhancing post-traumatic growth and renewing life.
References
Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent. Penguin Random House.
Cane, F. (1951). The artist in each of us manuscript. https://www.arttherapy.org/ARCHIVES/Historic%20Figures/Florence%20Cane/Artist%2 0in%20Each%20of%20Us%20Manuscript.pdf
Kapitain, L. (2017). Introduction to art therapy research: Edition 2. Routledge.
King, J. (2016). Art Therapy, Trauma, and Neuroscience Theoretical and Practical Perspectives. Taylor & Francis.
Legg, T. (2020). Fight, flight, freeze: What this response means
Leavy, P. (2017). Handbook of arts-based research. Gilford Press
Levine, P. (2008). Healing trauma a pioneering program for restoring the wisdom of your body. Sounds True.
Levine, P. (2020, March 25). Peter Levine on working with trauma that's stuck in the body. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl2HtNYajis
Levine, P. (2020, June 26). When a client is stuck in the freeze response with Peter Levine. PhD. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zsp4iRAGtc&t=94s
Magsamen, S. (2020). The Artistic Brain: A Neuroaesthetics Approach to Health, Well-being, and Learning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0iKFxP74Gs&t=41s
Maté, G. (2020). Dr Gabor Maté on childhood trauma, the real cause of anxiety and our ‘insane’ culture.
Moon, C. (2001). Spirituality and art therapy. Jessica Kingsley Publisher.
Rodski, S. (2019). The neuroscience of mindfulness: the astonishing science behind how everyday hobbies help you relax. Harper Collins.
Rogers, N. (1993). The creative connection expressive arts as healing. Science and Behaviour Books, Inc.
Rogers, N. (2016). Person-centered expressive arts therapy a path to wholeness. In J. A. Rubin (Ed.) Approaches to art therapy (3rd ed., pp. 230-248). Routledge.
van der Kolk, B. (1998). The compulsion to repeat the trauma. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 12 (2). p. 389-411. http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Publishing Group.
van der Kolk, B. (2015, May 7). Episode 47: Healing trauma/creative activities [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x-n4lyzfd4
Comments