Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are two conditions that deeply affect the brain. When someone experiences them, it can change the way they think, feel, and go about everyday things. How can one move forward when trapped in a cycle of painful memories from the past?
Recovery can be a long process and lonely. However, there is one powerful tool that many don’t realize can help support people with PTSD and TBI. That is art therapy.
Through art therapy, individuals with TBI can work on their cognitive and motor skills. Art therapy supports creative thinking and problem-solving. It is both experiential, somatic, and cognitive. PTSD art can support people with trauma to shift their perspective through creativity. Artmaking can help people focus on releasing emotions in art rather than within. It bypasses the cyclic trauma thoughts and feelings that pop up. The art made is discussed, and issues can be brought to light for processing.
What is Art therapy?
Art therapy incorporates creative artmaking in the therapy process. It enables a person to use drawing, painting, sculpting, or other forms of art to express their thoughts and feelings that are difficult to put into words. It’s a process where patients can express their feelings, emotions, sensations and memories in the art. It gets it out, so that people can express and process their painful emotions and experiences. We cover all of these flows in-depth in our What is Art Therapy? Discover the Benefits of Therapeutic Art.
How does Art therapy help with TBI?
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) result from a physical blow to the head, often caused by falls, sports injuries, or combat. Some of the signs are confusion, forgetting things, having problems with focus, being easily annoyed, and having muscle cramps or weakness.
Art therapy can help those with TBI in the following ways:
1. Improving concentration and attention to detail
Art therapy supports people with a TBI, by supporting new neuropathways and connections by engaging in artmaking. When people with a TBI engage in creative activities in art therapy, their memory, attention span, cognitive, and problem-solving skills are used. It works on a variety of areas of the brain.
2. Helps in emotional expression
TBIs often leave individuals struggling with communication. Art provides a non-verbal way for them to express their emotions, frustrations, and fears. Art-making is good for emotional release, especially when verbal communication is hard.
3. Fine motor skills
Painting, collage, and drawing call for our directed attention. We use certain hand movements and coordination. This makes art therapy an effective way to improve motor skills needed for improvement or regaining physical abilities. It provides an engaging and enjoyable experience.
How Art therapy can help with PTSD?
Millions of people around the world experience PTSD. It can come from many things, whether due to combat, physical injury, sexual abuse, or natural disasters. Individuals living with PTSD may suffer from these constant symptoms: A feeling of fight or flight, body symptoms (sweats, stomach aches, tension etc), flashbacks of the traumatic incident, nightmares, and severe anxiety and depression.
Sometimes talk therapy alone isn’t enough to process trauma, and that’s where art therapy and braispotting may come in. Art therapy helps release emotions through creative expression while Brainspotting further improves the healing process by using eye positions to access and heal deep emotional memories.
1. Processing trauma through art
PTSD individuals sometimes have a hard time conveying their emotions and feelings using words. That is because traumatic memories are not stored in the verbal center of the brain. If people could talk themselves out of a trauma, they would. Aside from what these traumatic experiences do to a person, PTSD symptoms can make a person feel like they are right back in that traumatic experience again. At times people will start to avoid thoughts, feelings, or things they never used to, in order to cope. In turn, they may feel more limited, stuck, and lean on unhelpful coping strategies. Art therapy opens the door for these memories to come to the surface and through drawing, creative expression, like collage or painting. It can help people make sense of their overwhelming emotions, process their trauma, and express themselves in a healthy way.
2. Giving a sense of control
People who go through trauma often feel helpless. Art therapy helps people express their story and reclaim their spirit. It helps us to get out our story, bring to light our stuck points, and release into our art. By choosing different colours, shapes, and themes, individuals get a sense of freedom of expression without judgement, which can be hugely healing.
3. Reducing anxiety and stress
Engaging in art therapy can be a very powerful grounding tool because it can help you focus on the creative process, it accesses different areas of the brain and it reduces cortisol, the stress hormone. It releases anxious thoughts from inside into the art. Art therapy can engage more mindfulness, and be body-centered which is relaxing. It can be a much-needed break from the intrusive thoughts of PTSD.
You can also read this article : Art therapy vs talk therapy: the core difference.
Case study: How Art therapy benefitted veterans suffering from TBI and PTSD
Case histories and research have shown the benefits of art therapy when recovering from TBIs and PTSD. For example, military veterans who have exposure to combat are generally unable to talk about what has happened to them. Art therapy provides them with a visual language to express the unspeakable, often leading to breakthroughs in their healing journeys.
Similarly, individuals recovering from TBIs have reported improvements in mood, cognitive function, and physical coordination after engaging in art therapy. For many, it has provided a creative outlet that allows them to move past their injuries and reclaim their lives. (NIH, Art therapy clinical interventions with military service members with TBI and post-traumatic stress, 22/12/2020)
About
Heather Caruso is a compassionate, skilled, and intuitive therapist. She is a registered Canadian art therapist, registered psychotherapist, narcissistic abuse therapist, specializing in trauma counseling and adult children of narcissistic, dysfunctional and or emotionally immature parents. She offers a unique blend of therapeutic approaches to help her clients navigate their healing journeys. Heather’s deep empathy and expertise create a safe and nurturing environment for those dealing with a mental health issue. Her areas of expertise are anxiety, depression, grief, low self esteem, stress management, trauma, PTSD and navigating big life changes. Heather offers one on one sessions for people from Ontario.
To support individuals in finding the right therapeutic path for their unique needs, she offers a free Zoom chat where people can ask questions and determine if her therapy services are a good fit for their needs. To book an appointment, call the office at 519 830 7123 or use this link to contact us.