Project

Trauma Focused Visual Therapy

More than 30% of clients with trauma-related complaints do not benefit from regular trauma treatments prescribed from national guidelines and research, all of which are based on cognitive behavioral therapy. The group that does not benefit is, for example, clients with poor verbal memory, who have difficulty talking about their experiences. For them, treatment is sometimes not a good fit because it focuses too much on cognitive processing. Another group that does not benefit enough currently prefers not to dwell on traumatic experiences. This group can sometimes verbalize very well, but is stuck in avoidance, so that working on recovery does not work well.

Art therapy offers a fundamentally different therapeutic approach than verbal, cognitive therapy, because art therapy works through experience and makes use of visual means. In this way, we work methodically on the client's personal goals. In practice, trauma-oriented art therapy appears to be an appropriate treatment that is used regularly. The visual, tangible, experiential character of Visual Therapy is in line with the often wordless, visual and sensory nature of traumas. However, this approach is insufficiently substantiated by means of research and is still rarely used. That is a lack according to client representatives. A study into the developed `Trauma-Focused Art Therapy protocol' previously showed positive results in terms of feasibility and applicability. This research was conducted on refugees.