Related Research

Joan Sila, Assistant Vice President of Residential & Transition Services, on The Impact of Creative Arts

The creative arts have become an integral part of treatment for children in residential placement at Berea Children’s Home and Family Services. Creative arts include drawing, music, plays, dance/body movement and crafts and are powerful tools to help the child master the distressing and/or terrifying experiences in their life. Trauma, whether it is caused by a single event or a series of experiences can cause unpleasant memories.  These memories are not limited to visual images but also include the other sensory memories of touch, sound, smell and taste, and they can have a strong psychological impact. The use of creative arts allows for children to express the emotions connected with sensory memories in small manageable pieces. This is not raw catharsis but a gentle doing and creating involving an energy release that helps transform disturbing thoughts, feelings and behaviors that bring relief to the child.

To learn about the best practice approaches of using creative arts in therapy, I recommend that clinicians read the book Creative Interventions with Traumatized Children edited by Cathy A. Malchiodi. To learn more about Cathy Malchiodi, speaker, author, therapist and consultant visit her website at: http://www.cathymalchiodi.com/