Using art therapy to overcome avoidance in veterans with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder

ABSTRACT

Avoidance can be a significant barrier to engaging in trauma-focused treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as being a mechanism that creates restrictions that can seriously impact functioning and wellbeing. Following an outpatient study with veterans that indicated art therapy might assist the overcoming of avoidance, a group of veterans was offered an art therapy-focused, short-stay, inpatient admission at the veterans’ mental health charity Combat Stress to explore this potential outcome. Participants were able to use the art therapy process to express and tolerate painful thoughts and emotions, and to consider the effects of rigid perceptions. The group dynamic between the veterans created a strong container for this process. Consequently, this study suggests that art therapy can be constructively employed in assisting veterans to overcome avoidance PTSD symptoms and as a means of opening up new ways of perceiving, interpreting, and responding to situations. It is proposed that the non-verbal operations of art therapy enable this process through the use of imagination and creativity.

KEYWORDS:

• Art therapy
• veterans
• avoidance
• chronic PTSD
• perceptions
• group dynamic
• creativity

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Janice Lobban is Senior Art Psychotherapist at Combat Stress, the veterans’ mental health charity, where she has worked for 16 years. In 2016, she was awarded a Winston Churchill Research Fellowship, which allowed her to visit art therapists across the USA to study the art therapy provision there for veterans and serving military personnel. Recently, she edited the book Art Therapy with Military Veterans: Trauma and the Image, which has brought together experienced contributors in this field, including veterans, to discuss the complexities of working in this context. She has lectured on art therapy and military trauma in London, Stockholm, St Petersburg, Amsterdam, and New York.

Dr Dominic Murphy is a senior clinical lecturer at Combat Stress and King’s College London. He is a Clinical Psychologist and has also completed his PhD. Dominic has specialised in working in the field of trauma. He has set up and runs a research department at Combat Stress and has an extensive publication record of over 50 publications within the area of military mental health. Dominic has lectured on military mental health at a number of international conferences around the world, teaches at King’s College London, and has supervised a number of doctoral projects.

ORCID

Dominic Murphy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9530-2743