Expressive Therapies Summit - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

October 14, 2017

Post-Disaster Treatment and PTSD Prevention: Art, Body & Psychosocial Interventions

Sunhee K. Kim

Nayung Kim

The last workshop I attended at the Expressive Therapies Summit was the Post-Disaster Treatment and PTSD Prevention: Art, Body & Psychosocial Interventions workshop. Although I had different expectations from this workshop that didn’t exactly match the material discussed, I was greatly impressed by the things that I had learned. This workshop, unlike the previous two, involved movement therapy mixed with art-therapy, rather than using just art-therapy. During this last workshop, I was able to move around and understand the benefits of movement in therapy practice.

For the first portion of the workshop was mostly lecture style. In this part of the workshop, Sunhee Kim and Nayung Kim discussed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Post Traumatic Growth (PTG). The example where they use psychosocial interventions using body movement was their work with children who had been greatly affected by natural disasters. They explained that during trauma or during the time an individual revisits the memory of trauma, the body shuts down causing a decrease in breathing. Since the body decreases its oxygen intake, it will then start trying to save the oxygen the body already has and may freeze. Since the trauma is not under control, the individual can develop PTSD. The goal of the movement therapy that they use is to discharge the traumatic energy that causes the individual to freeze and to generate feelings of comfort during traumatic events. The conscious breathing techniques that movement therapy uses prevents the body from losing oxygen, therefore prohibiting it from shutting down. Movement therapy allows individuals that have gone through trauma to learn how to connect with others through body movements. Finding these connections with others can strengthen the support system within the individual.

For the second portion of the workshop, Sunhee Kim and Nayung Kim both led us through some movement therapy. They emphasized the importance connecting to the self by first telling us to sense our self and feel our body. Locating our bodies in the here and now prevents ourselves from revisiting the trauma. Another important part of sensing the self was to avoid closing our eyes, since it can take a person back to the location and the trauma. While sensing the self, the workshop participants were directed to exercise 3D building. 3D building in the movement therapy we were practicing was giving our breathing dimension; we expanded and contracted our breathes, and gave them “size.” Afterwards, we started moving our self. The movement we did allowed us to interact with others. The socially engaging movement was a fun way to connect with others, break the ice, and be openly willing to share about our experiences. Nayung Kim and Sunhee Kim explained that the use of movement therapy can instill a sense of safety in individuals. We laughed and saw humor in our cathartic behavior as well, which was another reason why the workshop leaders enjoyed using this approach to therapy with children.

The last activity that we did in the workshop was integrating art media with the movement therapy we had just learned about. We took markers and pencils and pastels in our hands and drew our breathing. The art was not created by thinking, but rather by our breathing and moving. Combining “having the body” with “moving the body” was a way that these therapists used art and movement to symbolize the self and was a very interesting way of putting a visual to how people may feel internally.