A qualitative, art-based research approach is used in this study to explore the relationship between trauma and eating disorders in art therapy treatment. The literature review illuminates the function, presentation, and treatment of eating disorders and trauma. Adolescent developmental challenges are discussed in relation to eating disorders, given that this is the period when the diagnosis manifests. The nominal research on the use of art therapy for underlying trauma with clients who are in treatment for eating disorders suggests the importance of considering the implications for the field of art therapy. Two-semi-structured, art-based interviews are the primary data gathering component in understanding the connection between eating disorders and trauma. An axial coding process is used to analyze the textual and visual data to reveal emergent themes. The results of the analysis process suggest that art, which bypasses verbal defenses, allows the client to access and externalize internal experiences such as trauma. The study also reveals the interconnected nature of eating disorders and trauma. The findings recommend future study of this relationship and the necessity of addressing significant traumatic experiences in addition to abuse and most importantly to acknowledge trauma as a primary focus of treatment.

Our experiences over a lifetime are contained not only in our minds and psyches, but in the very structure of our bodies. Emotional pain can show up as blockage, restriction and habit patterns in both mind and body. Therefore, healing needs to take place on more than just the cognitive and mental levels; it needs to happen from the viscera of our beings, and from the unconscious realms into the conscious. In this heuristic study, I engaged material held more deeply inside myself by practicing yoga, making note of my dream material, and creating art. Used together, these practices had a powerful impact. Through them, I was able to gain insight into how I experience myself and the world, release some long and deeply-held pain, and experience healing around emotional issues. This experience provided emotional relief, and revealed resources and strengths I can draw on when I face future challenges. My hope is that it will help me in serving clients who are struggling with their own challenges.

The research objective of this qualitative case study was to explore how art interventions could be useful to teach at-risk adolescents how to identify with and develop, personal strengths and resilient qualities. The subjects in this study were receiving treatment in an outpatient mental health clinic for a variety of diagnoses and participated in a ten-week resiliency building art- therapy group. During the weekly sessions participants followed a specific protocol including psycho-education, art therapy interventions and processing of the art products. The art interventions were based on the literature and designed to develop personal strengths, self- reliance, self-discovery and communication, problem solving, flexibility, compassion and empathy, future planning and teamwork. The results indicate that at-risk adolescents are able to identify, discuss and develop solutions to their challenges using the art interventions and psycho- education and that the group art-therapy modality provides a unique tool to accelerate positive outcomes and resilience in an outpatient mental health setting.

This qualitative case study explored the role of art therapy in identity exploration for adolescents that have experienced complex trauma. The participant in this study was an adolescent survivor of childhood abuse who subsequently developed symptoms of complex trauma. She was a resident of Star View Adolescent Center located in Torrance, California. The researcher conducted a thematic analysis of the art images produced in a series of therapeutic sessions as well as an analysis of researcher response art. This analysis offered clues to the participant’s process of identity formation. The researcher found that the symptom spectrum of complex trauma, which includes difficulty with self-regulation, distortions in the sense of self, and disruptions to systems of meaning manifested in the art as fragmentation, disconnectedness, and isolation. Through both process and product, the use of art making in the therapeutic setting provided an opportunity to explore integration of the fragmented, disconnected, and isolated parts of self.

This study explores how a therapist’s personal history of complex trauma impacts countertransference in clinical work. Utilizing artmaking and journaling, the research questions and methodology are based on a previous study (Arbas, 2008), which this study replicates and then uses both data sets as for a comparative analysis. To inform this study, the literature review focuses on non-physical forms of child abuse, how child abuse over an extended period turns into complex trauma, how complex trauma effects a child, and how therapeutic treatments and art therapy can be utilized to help a child recover from trauma. In addition, Countertransference and vicarious traumatization, self- care, and Art and journaling as forms of self care are discussed. Through the data collection and presentation of data, the art responses and journaling illustrate effects and emotional responses of a therapist working with children with trauma histories in lieu of her own complex trauma history. The analysis identifies three themes: How countertransference manifests through the creative expressions used, how the creative reflections can help the therapist identify countertransference, and how the art process as a form of self-care helps the therapist is studied. Considering the data analysis from both this study and the study done by Arbas in 2008, it is observed that both subjects found that the art helped them to explore and identify their countertransference, release unconscious material, self regulate, better attend to their clinical work, and identify an increased need for self care.

This case study explores the benefits as well as the challenges of using art therapy with an emotionally disturbed child who was seen in three different settings. The literature reviewed for this case study covers the wide variety of factors affecting the client, including prenatal exposure to drugs, drug abusing parents, neglect in the postnatal environment, difficulty attaching to others, classification as emotionally disturbed (ED), requiring a special education classroom setting, and a diagnoses of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The findings indicate that the art proved to be a particularly useful tool with which to assess and treat the client. Initially, the client’s reluctance to create art in the session was interpreted by the author as being a reflection of her abilities as an art therapist. By examining her countertransference, the author was able to understand the client’s reluctance as a reflection of his difficulty attaching to the therapist and collaborating with his family. The findings highlight the importance for emerging art therapists to address their countertransference in supervision when working with clients who appear unwilling to make art.

Medical art therapy is a specific type of art therapy practiced primarily in settings where clients are actively ill or in recovery from a medical procedure. This heuristic study will seek to support the advancement of growth in this field, a wide spread use of medical art therapy in every setting catering to the medically or chronically ill. The researcher used her own medical records from a 10-year bout with illness, childhood to late adolescence, to stimulate the production of data in the form of journal entries and artwork. The data collected was then analyzed through both a clinical and personal lens to determine the existence of themes or patterns not only in the artwork, but also in the perceptions of the child then battling illness and now being assessed by their adult self. This research not only supports the benefits of utilizing art making/art therapy in processing and recovering from chronic illness but also in using the heuristic method of research to answer deeper questions from the perspectives of the clinician and the participant simultaneously.

This study explored how two LMU Art Therapy alumni were impacted by client-initiated premature termination, specifically when their clients stopped treatment without providing a reason. All that physically remained when their clients left was their art. The literature review explored the discrepancy between client’s and therapist’s perspectives on treatment duration and reasons for termination. While the art therapy literature explored art techniques to prepare for termination, there was no research on premature termination. Through qualitative approach utilizing interviews and art-based inquiry, art therapists in this study provided reflective perspectives and personal accounts of their experience. The study also explored participants’ interpretations of their client’s art from their final therapy session. Responsive art-making allowed art therapists to depict what they would want their clients to know now. Three themes emerged from analysis of the interviews and art responses: Art therapists’ residual feelings for their clients; Using art to convey the power differential in the therapeutic relationship; and Using art to convey well wishes, clarification, and containment—all stemming from the ambiguity of the unexpected ending. The choice to terminate treatment this way was the clients’ right. The power to create closure through art was the art therapists’. The art therapy field may benefit from future studies that address potential art techniques that help art therapists process the lasting impact of client-initiated premature termination.

This paper was an exploration of second generation Hungarian American identity development seeking to augment the understanding we have regarding second generation immigration, and particularly that of the children of those Hungarians who left during the communist occupation or shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The research methodology used was a qualitative inquiry of semi-structured narrative interviews with an art-making component, from which emergent themes were identified. The five emergent overarching themes found were: The unique experience of being Second- Generation to immigrant parents, Hungarian American Identity, Misperceptions connected to being part of a white minority group, A closed system serves as a protective factor, and Art as a facilitator for expression and meaning making. These themes are examined against existent literature pertaining to the experience of second-generation Hungarian Americans, and discussed within the context of clinical applications and possible future research.

This study documents an integrated mind/body approach to art therapy in the treatment of complex trauma and proposes a conceptualization of the process of neural integration of traumatic memory through art therapy. The researcher used a phenomenologically informed approach in a single case study design, culling data from 18 art therapy sessions with a child suffering from complex trauma. Using a data matrix, the researcher correlated verbalizations regarding somatic states and emotions with four categories of visual symbolizations. Emergent themes included seeking attachment repair; exposing attachment ruptures; experiencing traumatic memory as kinesthetic motoric process; dissociative coping mechanisms; behavioral control problems; and affect dysregulation. The researcher proposes a conceptualization of the neural integration of traumatic memory, mapping 12 associated neural and art processes. Outcomes subjectively documented include: better behavioral control; reduced somatic numbing; and improved affect regulation. Implications for the fields of art therapy and traumatology are discussed.