The Sunday News
Tafadzwa Gwetai
THE use of arts can be a potent intervention in alleviating symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Visual arts-and poetry-based “psychotherapies” may enable people with PTSD to, among others, express their thoughts and feelings through imageries, symbols, or metaphors, externalise their thoughts, feelings, beliefs or imaginations, concretise their abstract emotions to something that can be seen, touched, or observed.
There is a long history and much research into the “cathartic” effect of art-making and art as a therapeutic act has long been taken seriously by arts and health professionals. There are many curatorial angles, that highlight how creating work that has a cathartic impact is something many artists do regardless of what their “commercial” practice is about, as well as reiterating its equal visual importance.
This idea of catharsis is something that links both the “mainstream” art world and the “outsider” art world. In fact, it connects all artists or to go even further, every human being. It is a universal process and is something that reiterates the widely held belief that every human has the potential to be creative. Being creative has been studied by psychiatrists as being a form of mental release that is manifested through painting, song or poetry.
Art therapy is a psychological therapy that uses visual art as its primary medium but may also use music, poetry or story as a trigger for creative work. It is particularly useful for individuals who may find verbal communication difficult for a variety of reasons or who may use language as a defence. Art therapy is practised with both groups and individuals, it benefits clients in helping them express and contain potentially disturbing issues in a way they can manage.
The art created may be discussed during a session, to explore the feelings it communicates, though this may not be needed. Indeed it may be counterproductive in that the art itself being all the expression that is needed. For the therapist, the art created can offer important clues to what is behind their client’s distress and their progress and recovery may be mapped or documented by their artistic creations.
Art therapy can have profound effects in enabling people to get in touch with and express their feelings, while also being stabilising because of the engagement with physical materials such as clay, paint, photography. It has been observed that art allows us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Part of its value as therapy is that, like other arts therapies, it can offer a means of expression without words. This way it can get directly to the heart of emotions and provide an emotional outlet that feels safe because it is contained in the artistic creation and within the therapeutic relationship. It can also reach beyond cultural limitations.
“Drama-therapy” is a unique form of psychotherapy in which creativity has a central position within the therapeutic relationship. Clients engage in action techniques such as movement, play, voice, role-play, improvisation, games, storytelling, masks, puppetry, art or some individuals work more verbally using metaphor to aid insight and perception. Drama is very integral in understanding literature and the psyche of human beings.
“Drama-therapists” work effectively and efficiently with the client, respecting them for who they are and offering support for their journey. The therapeutic goals are symptom relief, emotional and physical integration, and personal growth. The therapist uses the creative media to help clients explore their life stories in order to gain insight and resolve or make troubling issues bearable, to aid the developmental processes, reverse negative brain patterns and affect positive behavioural changes to heal damage caused by difficulties or abuse in childhood. Clients may address issues such as loss, abuse — emotional/sexual/physical, anxiety, relationships, attachment, offending behaviour, addiction, self-harm, trauma and low-self esteem issues.
The drama-therapist uses different models of drama-therapy to respond to the specific needs of the client, who may be in individual or group therapy. Although children, young people or adults often come to drama-therapy with difficult and confused feelings, the sessions can be playful and fun. The drama-therapist endeavours to view the world through the individuals eyes, that way they can empower them and facilitate creativity, imagination, learning, insight and growth.
Traditionally, catharsis is defined as the emotional discharge that accompanies the experience of distressful emotions, but a broader view of catharsis is needed to explore it as a component of aesthetic systems. Artistic intentionality, including catharsis, resides in the execution of an artist’s work. Social and practical elements, constraints, and influences affect subjectivity at the time of production, determining the extent to which the artist’s intention is fulfilled. How artists’ catharsis interacts with the conditions of production and influences the content of art is the subject of the artists setting. This form of release by the artist is a process that is a cumulation of diverse feelings, thoughts and experiences.
