Titled: Clinical Community Art Therapy Intervention Program for BIPOC After Traumatic Community Death: A Theoretical Intervention-Based Research Paper. From the moment I chose art therapy at age 15 until now, you are both the reason I am here, an art therapy graduate. Clinical Community Art Therapy Intervention Program for BIPOC After Traumatic Community Death: A Theoretical Intervention-Based Research Paper.
This theoretical intervention paper proposes a community art therapy program that can be used after a traumatic event in a BIPOC community. Group art therapy has the potential to provide shared experience and support for BIPOC following trauma in the community. Art Therapy: An approach to psychotherapy in which the client(s) engages in the creation of art while being facilitated by a clinically trained art therapist.
The goal would be to identify successful group art therapy interventions used with BIPOC clients experiencing trauma. Areas of knowledge to be sought include art therapy, impact of racism and police brutality on BIPOC mental health, art therapy with BIPOC, psychotherapy with BIPOC, trauma-informed art therapy, culturally competent/sensitive art therapy, community art therapy. I will then address the program structure's goal of filling the gaps between the three concepts: trauma-oriented art therapy, art therapy with BIPOC, and community art therapy (including art hives), by merging them into an art therapy intervention model/plan that will serve BIPOC communities after a tragic death.
Literature Review
Edwards (2004) states, “Art therapy is the use of art materials for self-expression and reflection by a trained art therapist” (p.2). The art therapy we know is constructed within Western paradigms, while the idea of creating therapeutic art is inherently indigenous (Archibald, 2012). In the same text, Linesch and Carnay make four points about the integration of cultural aspects. competence in art therapy.
The consensus among researchers and art therapy handbooks is that to begin the journey of cultural competence, they must first begin introspective work. Malchiodi 2012 writes, "While relatively little is known about the impact of culture on art therapy per se, there is general consensus. Tillet & Tillet offer an art therapy intervention rooted in Black feminist theory as a means of cultivating self-care in the text Art Therapy for Social Justice.
What is self-care?” was suggested to participants to help demystify art therapy and cultivate the nascent states of healing (p.130). Trauma-informed art therapy combines knowledge of how trauma fundamentally affected the brain and brain development and the sensory impact of art-making in cases of trauma (Brown & . Malchiodi 2012, p.344). Cathy Malchiodi suggests four different areas of trauma-oriented art therapy when working with children who have experienced sexual abuse.
Group art therapy has the potential to provide "a meaningful and prosocial experience that reflects the community experiences that many clients lack". The same text considers community art therapy in the context of an art therapy group with. In the same text, Gonzalez-Dolginko (2011) cites Jones (1997), whose work with survivors of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing found that community members talked extensively about their grief and trauma, and that art therapy enabled them to do so .
A commonly known approach to community-based art therapy and art therapy in public practice (PPAT) is the art cube. A 2012 hermeneutic phenomenological study reviewed data from 8 community artists and found connections between community mural painting and the cultivation of social action through art therapy (Rossetto, 2012). Furthermore, Rossetto cites Lohman (2001) in the text, reflecting that murals helped promote "place making" in Philadelphia through art therapy mural making (Rossetto, 2002, p.19).
Culturally sensitive, trauma-informed, community-based art therapy can potentially provide opportunities for healing to occur.
Results/Intervention Design
The group will be led by a BIPOC art therapist along with a co-therapist as the group will have up to 24 participants and will navigate traumatic content. Additionally, both therapists will be required to have received training in trauma-informed care and anti-racist/anti-oppressive frameworks. As previously stated, up to 24 participants will be welcomed in the larger space and after splitting into smaller groups, each group will have 12 participants.
Group members/participants will be members of a community recently affected by the death of an unarmed black person due to police brutality. Although the therapist will use his eclectic training to hold space and suggest interventions, he will not use it to pathology. In light of community art therapy and a more non-clinical framework, the art therapist will act as a facilitator in the space and hold the group by encouraging conversation and be a regulated presence while stepping back and allowing the group/participants to lead (Awais & Ottemiller, 2016).
Group composition will be semi-open, providing structure while engaging with community art therapy models and being mindful of the weight of trauma and grief on the individual (Liebmann, 2004, p.30). As the group is open to the community and is committed to lowering the barriers that often limit people from receiving mental health services, self-referrals are welcome. Participants will be encouraged to complete a short google form to register for the group, followed by a 10-minute phone call with the art therapist and co-therapist.
As this aims to be an accessible initiative, entries will be welcomed and no one turned away from seeking support. As the group will be open to the community, the only criteria to enter the therapeutic space is that the individual is BIPOC and priority will be given to black community members. As noted above, sessions will begin using an open studio/community art-making model in which participants will be welcomed to engage in art-making simultaneously without assignments.
This will be an opportunity for people to land in space and make art with others of different age groups than themselves. Meijer-Degen's phases provide a preliminary outline for the phases that will be employed in the group.
Setting therapeutic frame and stabilisation, weeks 1 & 2
Although acknowledging agency of one's feelings is research-based, the practitioner must recognize that these community members have little to no agency over their lived experience, within the context of working with BIPOC people who have experienced systemic trauma.
Interventions which set the frame and establish the therapeutic goals The therapeutic frame will be co-created between art therapist and group members. The
Interventions which allow the event to be named and all emotions surrounding the event, welcomed
This intervention allows clients to be angry about what has happened in their community, explore the ways their bodies respond to anger, and perhaps allow conversations about dealing with said feelings (Stephney, 2010, p.152) . For this session, participants may be invited to engage in a control exercise such as a "felt rainbow". In which group members will take a moment to introspectively reflect on how they are entering the space and associate a color to each feeling.
To close this session in the larger group, participants will be invited to share a word or action with the larger group.
Interventions surrounding the traumatic event and its impact on clients Bridging intervention: group members are asked to depict a bridge as means of bridging pre
Interventions which work towards stabilisation
Remembering, building a safer space and drawing on community strengths
Interventions which hold space for grief and remembering the deceased and past losses
Interventions which encourage externalising in order to process trauma using autobiographical details and leading to the construction of new narratives
Interventions which work towards building a safer space
Interventions which draw on individual and community strengths
The goal of this intervention is to build on community strengths and remind group members of their inherent beauty and abilities after an event that strongly affected their image of self and belonging. Closing will include members who share popcorn style in the larger group, a quality they are proud to embody.
Termination week 5
Finding self care and closure of subgroups
Members will be invited to depict, using art materials, something they leave the sub-group space with.
The final session
Findings and Discussion
These strengths include cultivating feelings of community, shared experiences, striving for accessibility, building on anti-oppressive approaches, and reflecting client-centered theory. Strengths are achieved through group art therapy, accessibility and the fluidity of the program structure. Group art therapy: In the days following a community trauma, group art therapy offers the opportunity to initiate many of the suggested benefits of the intervention plans.
As mentioned earlier, art therapy can reduce clients' skepticism about traditional therapy. In addition, group therapy allows community members to be among others with shared experiences and the potential to support one another. Accessibility: It is critical to acknowledge the reality of mental health services that are often inaccessible to marginalized people.
If the proposed program were led by BIPOC therapists and practitioners, it is hoped that members of the BIPOC community will feel safer reaching out for support. Additionally, research has shown that when clinicians share similar ethical agendas with clients, higher levels of adherence to the therapeutic framework result. In addition, using a trauma-informed anti-oppressive framework is expected to fulfill and/or further the program's goals.
Fluidity of the art-hive and semi-open group structure: The group design is accessible to people who have difficulty complying with the therapeutic framework. Like any research, there is the potential for risks to arise between the proposal and the eventual pilot project. The goal would be for these areas of concern to be mitigated before the.
Allowing new members to enter the room along with attending sessions inconsistently risks goals not being met in the smaller group portion of sessions, while progress is slow and or limited. One solution to this is to adjust the program structure and instead of allowing new community members to enter both the art cube room and the subgroup room, they would be invited to join the art cube room only.
Conclusion and recommendations
Building an art therapy program designed for at-risk children in Nova Scotia (dissertation). Family art therapy: foundations of theory and practice (Family therapy and counseling series), narrative art therapy within a multicultural framework. In the Shadows of Terror: A Community Neighboring the World Trade Center Disaster Uses Art Therapy to Process Trauma.
Coping with loss and trauma through art therapy: training manual for workers in the field of helping child and adult victims of violence and war when words alone are not enough. The effectiveness of art therapy in the treatment of traumatized adults: a systematic review on art therapy and trauma.
