The Convergent Use of Images in Art Therapy and EMDR Therapy with Children and Adolescents.

Abstract

The combined use of art therapy and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) may be effective when there is evidence that the client has a trauma in their life history (Breed, 2013; Urhausen, 2015). Attachment styles should be considered to determine how and when both approaches are applied. In my practice, the combination has proven useful and complementary, as well as convergent in the use of images, whether expressed physically in art therapy or mentally in EMDR.
This chapter summarizes my clinical experience with children and adolescents who had psychological trauma symptoms due to bullying directed at obesity. Clinical vignettes show how mental images, as analogous to physical images, have helped in the symbolization process. I have documented this practice innovation with clinical notes and postsession audio image recordings (AIR; Springham & Brooker, 2013) with clients. An AIR is an audio recording of a semi-structured interview accompanied by viewing still images created by the client during the art therapy process. The process obtains the client’s views about the changes they have observed and the art therapy mechanisms that may have supported these changes.
The combined use of both approaches includes working at different times with each of them, in some cases within the same session. There are, however, art therapy protocols used with EMDR that describe satisfactory results in client recovery from traumatic symptoms, with their prevailing characteristic being the use of bilateral stimulation (McNamee, 2006; Talwar, 2007). I mainly use a non-directive approach and follow the themes that the client brings to the consultation. Art is important as an implicit way of working and interacting with the attachment system (Springham & Huet, 2018); therefore, art materials are always available to the client in the session. I turn to EMDR when, due to trauma symptoms, a client experiences memories or mental images that are distressing, repetitive, and disabling.

Full text

2. THE CONVERGENT USE OF IMAGES IN ART THERAPY
AND EMDR THERAPY
NORMA IRENE GARCÍA-REYNA
The combined use of art therapy and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy
(EMDR) may be effective when there is evidence that the client has a trauma in their life history
(Breed, 2013; Urhausen, 2015). Attachment styles should be considered to determine how and when
both approaches are applied. In my practice, the combination has proven useful and complementary,
as well as convergent in the use of images, whether expressed physically in art therapy or mentally
in EMDR.
This chapter summarizes my clinical experience with children and adolescents who had
psychological trauma symptoms due to bullying directed at obesity. Clinical vignettes show how
mental images, as analogous to physical images, have helped in the symbolization process. I have
documented this practice innovation with clinical notes and postsession audio image recordings
(AIR; Springham & Brooker, 2013) with clients. An AIR is an audio recording of a semi-structured
interview accompanied by viewing still images created by the client during the art therapy process.
The process obtains the client’s views about the changes they have observed and the art therapy
mechanisms that may have supported these changes.
The combined use of both approaches includes working at different times with each of them, in
some cases within the same session. There are, however, art therapy protocols used with EMDR that
describe satisfactory results in client recovery from traumatic symptoms, with their prevailing
characteristic being the use of bilateral stimulation (McNamee, 2006; Talwar, 2007). I mainly use a
non-directive approach and follow the themes that the client brings to the consultation. Art is
important as an implicit way of working and interacting with the attachment system (Springham &
Huet, 2018); therefore, art materials are always available to the client in the session. I turn to EMDR
when, due to trauma symptoms, a client experiences memories or mental images that are distressing,
repetitive, and disabling.
The Image as the Center of Reference in Art Therapy and EMDR
Mental images have always fascinated people as inherent to being human; internal images are those
that originate in words and give life to personal history (Tobin, 2006). Traumatic events are not
recorded mentally as but as images (van der Kolk, 2015). Damasio (1999) stated that mental images
have a direct power over emotions, allowing an individual to invent new actions for use in different
situations or future scenarios. This capacity of transmutation and combination of images is,
according to Damasio, the source of creativity.
Art therapy is a process largely sustained by the non-verbal aspect of images which, along with the
creative process, are the pillars of our work. Art therapists urge clients to use artistic creation as a
bridge to access thought, feelings, sensations, and mental images in order to communicate and
symbolize self-knowledge. EMDR also bases its practice on images. Its methodology consists of
reprocessing traumatic memories (in the form of images) by means of bilateral stimulation (i.e., eye
movements, sounds, gentle strokes, or vibrations) that desensitizes the intensity of the emotions felt
while remembering the disturbing event (Shapiro & Forrest, 2007). Bilateral stimulation offers
individuals the possibility of making associations on their own by identifying analogous events and
relating them to the memory they are working on.