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Art and ‘recovery’ from sexual abuse
Finding voice, finding voices
A collaborative research project involving thirteen survivors of childhood sexual abuse exploring the therapeutic impact of creative practice in ‘everyday life’ on their ‘recovery journeys’.
The research was part of a Doctor of Philosophy degree supported and funded by the College of Health, Science and Society, UWE, Bristol, and was supervised by Dr Elizabeth Jenkinson & Dr Cathy Warner. Contact alison.rouse@uwe.ac.uk for more information.
Image to the right: Language shutdown (Jeanie) (Used with permission of the artist.)
Image above: Still from the film, Felix Hodgson
Finding voice, finding voices
The research took the form of a series of individual ‘interviews’ with survivors reflecting on their creative practice and upon ‘artworks’ (visual, written, performance related, music) which had been particularly significant in their ‘journeys of recovery’. The findings from this study formed the basis for the collaborative production of a short film.
The research suggests that creative expression can work as ‘mastery experiences’, both individually and collectively. Artforms can as active agents of change, enabling survivors to find ways to ‘speak the unspeakable’, to be seen and to explore and process the abuse. They can act as safe containers for ‘making sense’ of trauma, facilitating integration of memory and split-off parts of self, through which selfhood, bodies and minds are reclaimed. They provide opportunities to play, to experience enlivenment and joy. Three specific interlinked art ‘pathways’ in recovery are proposed: catharsis, ‘private-to self’ processing, and enabling communication with others (external ‘witnessing’). The importance of metaphor and the significance of artforms as resources for overcoming internalised shame are highlighted. Some risks associated with creative media are also acknowledged. In enabling individuals to connect with others, art may become activism, part of a process of societal challenge as well as individual change.
Finding voice, finding voices (film)
https://uwe.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=454a7e87-e47c-4fb0-bf35-b42c00663f03