هنر درمانی، مداخله برای کمک رسانی موثر به کودکان دچار آسیب های روانی مشکوک به آسیب مغز اکتسابی

This paper reviews Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with a focus on its impact on children, highlighting the use of Art Therapy as a healing psychotherapeutic counseling method. A case study will demonstrate the use of Art Therapy with a child in whom a sudden event produced suspected Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), concurrently with PTSD symptomology. It is common after physical injury for healthcare professionals to work on physical recovery, leaving secondary psychological issues including stress to be assessed later, or when symptomology is evident, rather than examining risk factors at the time. PTSD symptomology can occur immediately after a sudden incident, hindering mind-body recovery. Emotional sequelae can be present long after resolution of physical sequelae, affecting the continuum of complete recovery. It is crucial to resolve emotional difficulties in order to recover completely. Seeing an individual in community outreach allows the traumatic experience to be processed within familiar, non-medical settings, and also acknowledges re-adjustment difficulties in these same settings. Art Therapy allows the use of creative materials to describe feelings and situations. Exercises are goal-oriented, require no artistic skill, and help to process feelings and concepts without having to ‘say’ all the words. Art Therapy is ideal when sensory, verbal or cognitive abilities are affected because it does not rely on verbal output.

The hallucinations that he reported, and difficulty sleeping, appeared to be possible PTSD symptoms and sequelae to the accident, having persisted more than a month. F lived in a small community without access to therapy support, and Community Outreach would serve his needs. F also appeared to be in difficulty expressing his emotions appropriately, possibly having internalized fear and anger as a result of the accident and earlier potentially-traumatizing school incident. He also showed no interest in previous activities, like soccer, and his drawing and scholastic abilities had regressed. Sessions explored his concept of emotions, expressing them as he felt comfortable, family system dynamics post-event because of possible parental traumatization as well, and concentrated on expressing what he experienced during the accident at his comfort level, in order to objectify his thoughts and emotions about it and validate his feelings and experience. Metaphor, graphing and drawing his systems information were used to facilitate expression, ego-strengthening techniques were incorporated. Truth-telling was reviewed as important. Therapy techniques and exercises would assist him in dealing with numbing and avoidance behavior, including sleep, hallucination activity, and would objectify the experience on paper so that desensitization and cognitive restructuring if necessary could occur. Techniques would also allow him to review system disruption post-event, removing trauma issues from his mind and placing them either on paper or in an art psychotherapy setting for discussion. A systems model of review would be followed, examining all influences after the event. F would be given the opportunity to become familiar with the therapeutic process, to trust and validate his own feelings and trust the therapist as a facilitator.