مؤسسة حياه للتنمية والدمج المجتمعي Development and community integration
Trauma represents a haunting phantom in the lives of everyone, it gives them a feeling of isolation, aggression and anxiety. See how with the use of brushes, painting and colors we light those shocks and shake the foundations of the sorrows that we have built
Under the project “Towards the rehabilitation and social reintegration of prisoners to society with a focus on female prisoner “, funded by Drosos Foundation, through which Life Foundation for Development and Community Integration provides its services for the psychological rehabilitation of prisoners, which includes art therapy activities for the released and their families
Rasha Al Saheely, an art therapist from April 19 to April 21, 2017, participated in a workshop held at Al-Rukhawi Hospital (Dar Al-Mokattam Mental Health) entitled “Art Therapy with Children with Emphasis on Trauma
In preparation for the beginning of art therapy sessions with the children of female prisoners targeted in the Start_Life project, which will be hosted at the foundation’s hospitality centers in the targeted provinces of the project
The workshop discussed several important topics
Why art therapy with children? What are the most important treatments in art
How does art work?
Art therapy with specific diagnoses (obsessive-compulsive disorder – anxiety – sexual trauma – depression – selective mute – hyperactivity and attention deficit with emphasis on post-traumatic stress disorder)
Art therapy with groups of children.
What are the shocks of childhood? And trauma sources (sexual abuse – physical – emotional – surgery and dangerous medical diagnoses – loss or death – abduction or torture – watching or science of domestic violence or traumatic event – neglect – change in the dynamics of the family
Factors affecting the impact of trauma on the child such as mental health previous trauma, age, gender, flexibility and protective factors
How does the child remember the trauma and the recording of feeling
Encoding the traumatic event
Analyzing the traumatic experience and its implications
There were many benefits
How art therapy releases pent-up emotions to the level of awareness that can be explored through creative images
Pay attention to how to use the creative process to help customers to increase their vision and deal with stress and work through their previous painful experiences
Achieve greater self-esteem
Activate art therapy in helping individuals to trust therapists more and be more open
Individuals become comfortable in expressing themselves with pictures or drawings to talk about their feelings
How does art reduce the barriers that an individual sets for himself? It makes him deal with his feelings in a better way and uses his imagination.
Note that the therapist’s point of view or vision is not dropped during his discussions with the clien
The importance of being an experienced therapist with your mind and feelings with the client
Using painting, clay and sandbox methods with children, especially those who have been exposed to trauma, helps to express emotional feelings and emptiness. The emotional discharge shows the unconscious material, facilitates verbal communication and embodies the internal representations in visual images
A lot of different activities were done during the workshop, such as playing, dancing, individual and collective drawing, clay play and role playing
Among the activities that have had a profound impact on the soul
Drawing activity within a group of two individuals, dividing individuals into small groups. Each group selects colors and drawing on one common paper without talking together.
In the first group, each individual took his own area and painted it Everyone was afraid to approach and draw towards the other and did not exceed the boundaries of his area
in the second group walked in the same way as the first group, but one of them started drawing towards the other, which encouraged them to merge together
The third group was the integration of the painting so that they were talking to each other through drawing, for example, when one of them painted the sun, the other drew a sea and then palm and boat until the drawing looked as if it was drawn by one person
While the fourth group agreed from the beginning to draw a certain thing and there was a party who focused on the quality of the painting and the other party did not care for it and therefore did not understand the task required of them and resulted in one party ended the painting separately and the other withdrew and tamped the color and lines, which led to a sense of anger
The fifth group started with random drawings in random areas and was talking with emotions, as they were watching each other’s reactions and expressions in graphic way, despite the differences of drawings inside the painting, but it ended like a painting for one person
Sand box activity, which is a large vessel with a quantity of sand and using a variety of shapes and figures, the person to make a story on these sand, whether its from their vivid imagination or a realistic story
This activity was one of the harshest activities that caused a lot of pain and sadness to the owners of stereotypes
The workshop was held by the following lecturers
(Annie Keary)
Masters in Art Therapy in July 2001 from North London Polytechnic University (Integration of Gastrointestinal Therapy, Group Operations, Analysis of Transactions, Theories of Attachment, Young Analysis and Psychotherapy
(Dr. Hanan Al-Mizahi)
Masters in Pediatrics in 2006
PhD in mental health in 2016
Through the work of the foundation with the marginalized groups, prisoners and the released, it has been shown that many of them have been traumatized since childhood or recent shocks that had a strong impact in them, we find that this workshop plays the utmost importance in activating the role of art therapy for trauma through a series of programs organized by the rehabilitation and integration unit in the foundation
These sessions were re-executed with the foundation’s cases through a number of sessions that were designed immediately after that workshop
