A Four-Drawing Art Therapy Trauma and Resiliency Protocol Study

Publication date: Available online 15 February 2018Source: The Arts in PsychotherapyAuthor(s): Noah Hass-Cohen, Rebecca Bokoch, Joanna Clyde Findlay, Alyssa Banford WittingAbstractResiliency, as fostered by creativity, imagination, and the arts therapies, is a critical factor in managing the impact of adversity. This pilot study investigated the potential effectiveness of a four-drawing art therapy trauma and resiliency protocol for coping with adverse life events. The protocol is designed according to memory reconsolidation research and based in art therapy relational neuroscience (ATR-N) principles and trauma models. The hypotheses were that participation in the four-drawing protocol would result in: decreases in overall effect of the traumatic event (hypothesis one), decreases in negative affect endorsement and rating as expressed by sadness, grief, depression and anxiety (hypothesis two and three), reductions in pain endorsement and rating (hypothesis four and five), increases in resiliency-based resources (hypothesis six), positively rated impact on participants’ understanding of the problem and resources (hypothesis seven), increases in posttraumatic growth cognitions (hypothesis eight), and increases in relational security (hypothesis nine). The positive effects of the four-drawing protocol components, including the drawings, questionnaires, and inquiry were examined. Main findings included significant decreases in the rating of the effect of the traumatic event (hyp...
Source: Arts in Psychotherapy - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research