Finding new self-narratives through artist book and life story in cumulative interpersonal Trauma

Abstract

Art therapists work with diverse people experiencing life-changing distress that cannot be expressed verbally. From its early beginnings in the UK and USA, art therapy is now attracting international interest and recognition. To meet ever-changing needs in uncertain times, art therapists worldwide are currently advancing socially just and culturally relevant practice and research. This book presents original contributions, highlighting innovative research and culturally diverse practices that are transforming art therapy with new insights and knowledge. It captures an internationally vibrant and truly client-centred profession, and will be of interest to arts therapists, artists in healthcare, psychotherapists, counsellors, and professionals who use art therapeutically in their practice.

In this chapter a case study is presented as part of a larger research project that explored the lived experience of women who engaged in a pilot art therapy program that featured a life story artist book technique. The study explored perceptions of self-experience for one of the participants of the program. Case reporting suggests that the art therapy program was an inflection point in the woman’s process that helped her to explore her own ways of expression in the form of visual autobiographical narration, and to create a new self-narrative that helped her to situate her traumatic episodes as an integrated part of her life project.