Art therapy can be you creating your own works, or finding an already created work that promotes healing for YOU. In the article Inner Bonding: Healing Childhood Trauma (September 5, 2009), it describes creating an inner parent for yourself, by yourself. Finding a way to express your true inner self is not only healing, but a mark of maturity. Art therapy can help you become your own parent, perhaps the one you should have had but didn't. This is important for survivors of abuse, because abuse oppresses and suppresses personal growth. If we as a society allow any members to become weakened by abuse, we weaken our society as a whole.
I posted examples of how to use art can to help healing. Since I picked them from my own bag of personal favorites, perhaps none spoke personally to you. That's okay: I don't need readers who see the world exactly like I do. What I would like to know is that you read these, and they inspired you to find or create works that inspire YOU in your journey, whatever that may be. Healing doesn't erase the trauma, but teaches you how to manage it so you control it, rather than it controlling you. Hurting people don't function as optimally as healed people: being the best you that you were created to be benefits not only yourself, but all of us.
I'd like to start a new, but similiar, focus through stories I find inspiring. They also illustrate what I've pointed out today: healthy, strong societies start at the individual level with healthy, strong members.
~~Debra Contreras
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