Human beings are very social creatures, often operating under an implicit principle of conformity as proved by experiments like that of Solomon Asch (1956). But when the majority does not welcome the needed expression and/or communication of traumas and hardships, we often try to control our thoughts and emotions so that we can pretend that the trauma doesn’t bother us for the comfort of others. This often leads to rumination– repetitive thought patterns following life-changing events, especially negative thoughts following trauma.
Rumination can be equally as helpful as it can be destructive, but as a natural response to trauma, it can not only give us the opportunity to “return to [our] baseline state of functioning, but learn to truly thrive” (Kaufman & Gregoire, 2015). Therefore, it’s natural that many people will try to find healthy outlets of some sort to express and organize these thoughts. These positive outlets often lead to one of two phenomenon, depending on the catalyzing event: post-traumatic growth, a term coined first by Tedeschi and Calhoun in the mid-1990’s (Kaufman & Gregoire, 2015), or post-ecstatic growth, a term coined by Ann Marie Roepke (2013). This article will focus mainly on post-traumatic growth.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze why people of many backgrounds, having experienced different kinds of trauma, pursue creative endeavors rather than find someone to talk to. The purpose is to answer the question of whether or not there is a unifying reason that trauma victims or survivors connect and communicate their experiences through writing, paining, or other creating. Through careful research and reflective note-taking throughout the process of writing this article, a greater understanding for learning and processing of life events– especially large, traumatic events– should be achieved.
Research & Discussion
In Dahlgren, Martinez, and Dutton’s study (2020), the Holistic Healing Arc proves to be an integral part of the healing and growth of the sexual trauma survivors, and expression of participants’ thoughts, feelings, and ideas through creative expression was mentioned in daily audio journals as an important part of their recovery processes by 82.9% of participants. Art can also spark conversations and connections, as well as any common interests, mediums, and hobbies that survivors may have discovered throughout the retreat, so it could be argued that art contributed to the fact that 100% of participants credited connection for the healing and growth experienced throughout the retreat. What was also significant I found in several articles. As it was found in Healing narratives from the Holistic Healing Arts Retreat, awareness as it relates to “healing in the present” was mentioned by 72.7% of study participants. As Duchin and Wiseman found in their study of Holocaust child survivors (2019),
“the psychological aspects of the process of giving testimony [in this case, through writing,] entails understanding that the traumatic event is often perceived… as something that happened “there”... does not belong to the present and “experiencing I.”... integrating it into the whole life story and identity is almost impossible.”
This awareness of the present self is a common theme even in my own trauma recovery. In fact, finding something that grounds a person to the present when experiencing a flashback or panic attack is a highly recommended method of managing PTSD and other mental disorder symptoms, as well as chronic pain symptoms (Doidge 2016). The question that Duchin and Wiseman’s research (2019) poses is one of how this grounding in the present is achieved through some form of artistic expression– in this case, writing.
Duchin and Wiseman (2019), through a “narrative analysis approach… employing qualitative methodology” in the interviewing of thirteen Holocaust child survivors now living in Israel, found that there were three main themes that were common with most or all of the participants; these were defined as wordless space and self narration, aloneness and lonliness and the quest for connectedness, and personal space and public space. Self narration and connectedness are both significant to grounding in the present moment because it helps the artist to separate the ‘then’ from the ‘now.’ Making masks to reflect a patient’s worst moments or fears is common practice in art therapy to help patients consciously and subconsciously realize that the thought of these fears doesn’t mean they are in immediate danger, and even that some fears aren’t always dangerous at all. But how does art play a role in psychological healing and growth?
As Orkibi and Vlasov put in in their 2019 study, Linking Trauma to Posttraumatic Growth and Mental Health Through Emotional and Cognitive Creativity, theories of post-traumatic growth “generally suggest that an experience of adversity shatters an individual’s pretrauma beliefs about the benevolence, justice, and controllability of the world,” and forces the individual to reconstruct new beliefs to accommodate the lesson learned through the hardships of trauma and healing. These new beliefs are previously uncharted for the individual, so it would make sense that the individual would try to explore these new “brain maps” and visualize them until living with the trauma becomes at least bearable, and over time the pain may go away (Doidge 2016). This theory is supported by Duchin and Wiseman’s 2019 study in the case of at least one participant, referred to as Moshe.
Moshe began writing his story when he was around 40, when he was serving in the army and his life was in danger. After this first experience experience of writing, he left it in a drawer and only resumed writing 15 years later when diagnosed with a severe medical condition… “Through writing I was able to hear myself as a child and connect to what I have been through and to the hidden child that I was.”
Child survivors of the Holocaust were never really considered survivors until the 1990’s in Israel. It was often perceived that these children (under 16 by the end of the war) were too young to remember the atrocities, and they were often discouraged from talking about their traumas. For children that were hidden during the war, they grew attached to the families they were protected by, and often were torn from these families entirely if their parents survived to take them back. Their parents often were also too busy trying to either cope or, more likely, repress their trauma, making it hard for these children to speak about these issues with anyone. Neither parent, nor child talked about World War II and its traumas in most survivor households post-war (Bar-On, 1995), and the parents– especially with the strong bonds that these families lacked due to children being raised in different households for safety reasons– are often the biggest voice of approval for a child. As social creatures, human beings naturally have a need to communicate when something is wrong, but often this sort of social approval is needed first; child survivors of the Holocaust never had this, and so were left to repress their memories too in order to live fuller and happier lives. That being said, the “wordless space” that Duchin and Wiseman (2019) refer to in their article is the home due to this “pattern of ‘mutual overprotection’ between survivors and their children” (Duchin & Wiseman, 2019; Wiseman & Barber, 2004, 2008; Wiseman et al. 2002). This wordless space was writing for these survivors– a creative outlet– was organized into something that both made sense to them and helped them realize that the past is no longer a present danger to them.
Without feeling able to communicate with others, one can feel extremely lonely or aloof even in a crowded room. D. W. Winnicott (1958) mentions that the capacity for this solitude is “one of the most important signs of maturity in emotional development,” which may explain why child survivors often lived full and happy lives despite their traumas, but there’s a point when that solitude becomes destructive. For example, Wilson the volleyball becomes the sole companion of Chuck Noland in the Zemeckis (2000) production of Castaway, even as Noland is reintroduced to society. In several studies, child survivors of the Holocaust admit to feeling alone even amongst others because they didn’t feel that anyone would truly grasp or understand their traumas. Such is often shown to be true, as many sexual trauma survivors don’t speak out for some time after their assault.
In conclusion, repression of traumas are all too common because it isn’t always considered socially acceptable to bring such serious issues to light in a public space. The best way to cope besides talking is art– it’s a form of expression in a form that not everyone will understand. Making art is a thought process, a process through which shattered “pretrauma beliefs” rebuild themselves into stronger neural pathways and thought patterns that make more sense with what the world actually is, rather than just our perception of it (Orkibi & Vlasov 2019). Art is the brain re-making itself. It’s bringing someone that otherwise feels alone in their trauma, into a new space where their story can make more sense to others as well (Duchin & Wiseman 2019). Trauma may not be necessary in making a story out of art, but art is almost necessary after trauma to help us reconstruct our brains, beliefs, and thought patterns.
References
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