Space of Art Therapy: The Art of Restoration Mental Health in Wartime : proceedings of the XX International Interdisciplinary Scientific and Practical Conference. — Kyiv, 2023.
Creative Supervision & Self-Care in Preventing and Treating Vicarious Traumatization
Irina Katz-Mazilu, Member of the House of Artists, France.
Introduction - Art and Art Therapy
The art therapist’s physical and mental health is a main issue for professionals both on the personal and on the clinical level. Human beings are all subject to frustration, deception, suffering, grieving, distress, trauma, crackdown, burn out, depression, death and fear of death...so are the arts therapists [1]. Before choosing and training to be an art therapist, we need a personal art-psychotherapy. And as we know that patients’ issues can destabilize the most experienced therapist, we need to learn how to use art and art therapy for regulating our inner balance and avoid vicarious traumatization.
Vicarious Traumatization, Self-Care and Resilience
Transference issues become even more complex when the client’s suffering infers echos connected to the therapist’s own life experience. This situation is both able to deepen empathy and help the therapist’s efficiency as to mislead to vicarious traumatization [2]. As an art therapist, I need to develop tools helping to face difficult events in life and constant professional challenges in my practice. They have to be concordant with my own identity and personal style. Continuing training, creative intervision and supervision as well as personal art practice are mandatory all along our professional life. I will show how I recently had to do an important selfcare work.
Current Challenges and Crisis
Since several years we all have been impacted by the pandemic which was traumatizing for many art therapists (and for everybody else too). Scarcely starting to get off the post-traumatic period of the covid pandemic – with the virus still here – when a new catastrophe occurred: the war in Ukraine, threatening us with terrifying actual and potential consequences. Moreover, a global and long-lasting challenge is the climate crisis with its economic, social and mental health consequences... Facing multiple crisis, my professional community quickly put in place effective art & art therapy responses as well as research strategies [3, 4]. But, on my personal level, the shock of this war was particularPage No: 01 ly hard. Romania is my native country and it is joining Ukraine and Moldavia, it is so close to Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia…I have friends and colleagues who are or might be more directly than myself threatened and hurt. This war was also a brutal reminder of my young years with the Ceausescu’s regime in the post-Stalinist Romania, of the way I had to run away to exile and become a migrant trying to escape brutality and dictatorship. I am living for more than 40 years in France but at the end of February 2022 when this war started, I was traumatized again. I hardly could believe my eyes and ears…
Self-Care and Resilience
One of the art therapy methods that I experienced in 2022 through a several month process is the TT-AT protocol implemented by the Italian art therapist Paola Luzzato [5]. The Trauma Treatment Through Art Therapy is a process in 6 steps/sessions, organized in 3 phases with specific objectives, goals and methods. It has been successfully applied with various populations: groups of African women with traumatic experiences of sexual abuse, rape, war violence; Ukrainian children and adolescent refugees; as well as other profiles of art therapy clients. Each step of the protocol is composed by a short time for psycho-education, a semi-directive art proposal on a specific theme, a moment of common silent looking, a time for sharing and finally a brief free art work closing the session. I used this training both to learn the protocol and to manage vicarious traumatization. It also helped me to develop creative intervision and supervision as well as to boost my own art work. The illustrations below show my art & art-therapy self-care work between February and May 2022 [6].
The art therapist’s physical and mental health is a main issue for professionals both on the personal and on the clinical level. Human beings are all subject to frustration, deception, suffering, grieving, distress, trauma, crackdown, burn out, depression, death and fear of death...so are the arts therapists [1]. Before choosing and training to be an art therapist, we need a personal art-psychotherapy. And as we know that patients’ issues can destabilize the most experienced therapist, we need to learn how to use art and art therapy for regulating our inner balance and avoid vicarious traumatization.
Vicarious Traumatization, Self-Care and Resilience
Transference issues become even more complex when the client’s suffering infers echos connected to the therapist’s own life experience. This situation is both able to deepen empathy and help the therapist’s efficiency as to mislead to vicarious traumatization [2]. As an art therapist, I need to develop tools helping to face difficult events in life and constant professional challenges in my practice. They have to be concordant with my own identity and personal style. Continuing training, creative intervision and supervision as well as personal art practice are mandatory all along our professional life. I will show how I recently had to do an important selfcare work.
Current Challenges and Crisis
Since several years we all have been impacted by the pandemic which was traumatizing for many art therapists (and for everybody else too). Scarcely starting to get off the post-traumatic period of the covid pandemic – with the virus still here – when a new catastrophe occurred: the war in Ukraine, threatening us with terrifying actual and potential consequences. Moreover, a global and long-lasting challenge is the climate crisis with its economic, social and mental health consequences... Facing multiple crisis, my professional community quickly put in place effective art & art therapy responses as well as research strategies [3, 4]. But, on my personal level, the shock of this war was particularPage No: 01 ly hard. Romania is my native country and it is joining Ukraine and Moldavia, it is so close to Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia…I have friends and colleagues who are or might be more directly than myself threatened and hurt. This war was also a brutal reminder of my young years with the Ceausescu’s regime in the post-Stalinist Romania, of the way I had to run away to exile and become a migrant trying to escape brutality and dictatorship. I am living for more than 40 years in France but at the end of February 2022 when this war started, I was traumatized again. I hardly could believe my eyes and ears…
Self-Care and Resilience
One of the art therapy methods that I experienced in 2022 through a several month process is the TT-AT protocol implemented by the Italian art therapist Paola Luzzato [5]. The Trauma Treatment Through Art Therapy is a process in 6 steps/sessions, organized in 3 phases with specific objectives, goals and methods. It has been successfully applied with various populations: groups of African women with traumatic experiences of sexual abuse, rape, war violence; Ukrainian children and adolescent refugees; as well as other profiles of art therapy clients. Each step of the protocol is composed by a short time for psycho-education, a semi-directive art proposal on a specific theme, a moment of common silent looking, a time for sharing and finally a brief free art work closing the session. I used this training both to learn the protocol and to manage vicarious traumatization. It also helped me to develop creative intervision and supervision as well as to boost my own art work. The illustrations below show my art & art-therapy self-care work between February and May 2022 [6].
Figure 1: Men in war, sideration (collage, drawing, mixed media).
Figure 2: Women in war, sideration (collage, drawing, mixed media).
Figure 3 : Searching a seed, new hope (charcoal, pastels).
Figure 4: Planting a seed, acting for resilience (ink, charcoal, vegetal elements).
Figure 5 : The butterfly, memories from Agistri, a new life (Photo, ink, seeds, textiles, mixed media).
These images show a progressive stepping from chaotique, violent and frightening feelings to a positive attitude recovering hope and trust in myself, life and world.
Conclusion
This experience proves the effectiveness of the art therapy, and specifically of the TT-AT protocol, for treating PTDS and complex trauma. Using appropriate tools - such as non-verbal communication and detour strategy - through art work, the art therapy helps making visible, expressing and sharing, stop hiding and thus healing deeply rooted trauma. People get able to face the reality, find solutions and make projects in their life [7].
References
1. Katz-Mazilu, I. (2022). What about the art therapist's resilience ? International Conference Art Therapy and Personal Health. Lithuania May 22.
2. Pearlman, L. A. (1995). Self-care for trauma therapists: Ameliorating vicarious traumatization. In B. H. Stamm (Ed.), Secondary traumatic stress: Self-care issues for clinicians, researchers, and educators (pp. 51-64). The Sidran Press.
3. Huss, E., Sarid, O., & Cwikel, J. (2010). Using Art as a Self-Regulating Tool in a War Situation: A Model for Social Workers. Health & Social Work, 35(3), 201-209.
4. Segal-Engelchin, D., Achdut, N., Huss, E., & Sarid, O. (2020). CB-Art Interventions Implemented with Mental Health Professionals Working in a Shared War Reality : Transforming Negative Images and Enhancing Coping Resources. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7), 2287.
5. Luzzato, P., Ndagabwene, A., Fugusa, E., Kimathy, G., Lema, I., Rugema, L., & Wood, M. J. (2022). Trauma Treatment through Art Therapy (TTAT): a ‘women and trauma’ group in Tanzania. International Journal of Art Therapy, 27(1), 36-43.
6. Katz-Mazilu, I. (2023). Creative Supervision & Self-Care in Preventing and Treating Vicarious Traumatization. ХXth International Interdisciplinary Scientific and Practical Conference, SPACE OF ART THERAPY : the art of restoration mental health in wartime, Kijv.
7. Katz-Mazilu, I. (2018). Renunciation, an enemy within ? Proceedings of the Congress Art therapy at the risk of trauma, Avignon May : 5-6.
8. EFAT – European Federation of Art Therapy. Retrieved from www.arttherapyfederation.eu
Conclusion
This experience proves the effectiveness of the art therapy, and specifically of the TT-AT protocol, for treating PTDS and complex trauma. Using appropriate tools - such as non-verbal communication and detour strategy - through art work, the art therapy helps making visible, expressing and sharing, stop hiding and thus healing deeply rooted trauma. People get able to face the reality, find solutions and make projects in their life [7].
References
1. Katz-Mazilu, I. (2022). What about the art therapist's resilience ? International Conference Art Therapy and Personal Health. Lithuania May 22.
2. Pearlman, L. A. (1995). Self-care for trauma therapists: Ameliorating vicarious traumatization. In B. H. Stamm (Ed.), Secondary traumatic stress: Self-care issues for clinicians, researchers, and educators (pp. 51-64). The Sidran Press.
3. Huss, E., Sarid, O., & Cwikel, J. (2010). Using Art as a Self-Regulating Tool in a War Situation: A Model for Social Workers. Health & Social Work, 35(3), 201-209.
4. Segal-Engelchin, D., Achdut, N., Huss, E., & Sarid, O. (2020). CB-Art Interventions Implemented with Mental Health Professionals Working in a Shared War Reality : Transforming Negative Images and Enhancing Coping Resources. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7), 2287.
5. Luzzato, P., Ndagabwene, A., Fugusa, E., Kimathy, G., Lema, I., Rugema, L., & Wood, M. J. (2022). Trauma Treatment through Art Therapy (TTAT): a ‘women and trauma’ group in Tanzania. International Journal of Art Therapy, 27(1), 36-43.
6. Katz-Mazilu, I. (2023). Creative Supervision & Self-Care in Preventing and Treating Vicarious Traumatization. ХXth International Interdisciplinary Scientific and Practical Conference, SPACE OF ART THERAPY : the art of restoration mental health in wartime, Kijv.
7. Katz-Mazilu, I. (2018). Renunciation, an enemy within ? Proceedings of the Congress Art therapy at the risk of trauma, Avignon May : 5-6.
8. EFAT – European Federation of Art Therapy. Retrieved from www.arttherapyfederation.eu