The creative arts are a powerful way for children who have suffered the trauma of abuse, neglect and homelessness to express their innermost feelings.
Oftentimes, children who have experienced abuse have many conflicting feelings at the same time- anger, fear, shame, sadness. Expressing these emotions through the creative arts is a safe way for children to show how they feel.
According to a study conducted by the British Columbia School of Art Therapy, the arts are crucial to the healing of abused children.
- Children are comfortable and fluent with art.
- Creative art expression enhances self-esteem through mastery over media.
- Art allows a child the distance needed to build trust with an adult.
- Art accesses creative energy.
- Art heals through the child's increased ability to control self and media.
- Art provides a safe outlet for expression of regressive impulses, anger, and other difficult feelings.
- Art allows for expression and the release of nonverbal feelings and information.
- The art process promotes insight and reduces defensiveness.
Some children have no language to describe their thoughts and feelings; visual expression offers a greater range of effective vocabulary than is possible through verbalization.
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