Creative arts as self-care: vicarious trauma, resilience and the trainee art therapist

Abstract

Background Research shows that indirect trauma can negatively affect professionals in helping professions, with students and young professionals at greater risk, particularly if they have a personal history of trauma. Research suggests that engaging in the creative arts may help professionals process vicarious trauma and promote resilience.

Context This paper explores the use of creative arts practice for self-care by an art therapy trainee with lived experience of somatic disorder symptoms and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), working in a secure setting.

Approach Using a trauma lens, the paper discusses how the creative arts can ameliorate the effects of indirect trauma when working as a trainee art therapist in a challenging context. The trainee’s early life experiences elucidate the challenges of countertransference and trauma. The creative arts process supports the reflexive skills an art therapist uses for effective practice.

Outcomes The creative arts as a self-care practice supported the trainee art therapist to negotiate her dissociative defence style. It was an effective tool for managing the ill-effects of exposure to trauma, including somatic symptoms, and benefited the trainee’s development.

Conclusions The creative arts helped the trainee to reconnect with her body and emotions, and subsequently benefited her clinical thinking.