The Recovery Process of a Victim Traumatized by Violent Crime through the Long Term Art Therapy
Bae, Sung-Yun.
Major in Art therapy
Department of Counseling Psychology
Seoul University of Buddhism
The purpose of this study is to understand the experience and its meaning of the long term art therapy in the recovery process of a victim traumatized by violent crime. The research question according to it is to examine about the experiences of art therapy in a traumatized person and about a meaning of art therapy in the recovery process.
To this end, the aim was to find out implications on its experience by analyzing and exploring the experience contents of art therapy after selecting a case research presented by Yin(2018/2021).
This study selected 1 person as a research participant in order to grasp a unique therapeutic meaning possessed by a victim traumatized by a violent crime in the context of the art therapy process. The participant had the experience of art therapy from a researcher and had art therapy for traumatic recovery of this study proposed by the researcher after this.
The art therapy in this study was progressed totally 45 sessions once a week or once per two weeks from January 2021 to January 2024. The data collection was included the previous art therapy contents with being agreed later. It was gathered the observation record of artwork process, the recording in the art therapy process, the researcher¡¯s record, the photograph of a work, and the photo of the artwork production process. The transcribed oral data was constructed a concept with the line unit analysis and then was composed a category by unifying the drawn concepts in the dimension of commonality and similarity.
Based on this process, it was reconstructed with a cause, a context, and a result by a time series method and a description suggested by Yin(2018/2021). To ensure the validity of the case study alone, the objective was to secure constructive validity, external validity, and reliability presented by Yin(2016). The outcomes of this study are as follows.
As a result of having parsed by dividing it into a cause, a context, and an outcome based on the experiences of the long term art therapy in a victim traumatized by a violent crime, there was appearance with 192 concepts, 30 low categories, and 7 high categories. It was indicated to be ¡®a violent crime victim trauma case¡¯ for a cause and to be ¡®a physical and psychological difficulty caused by a crime victim trauma case,¡¯ ¡®the breakdown of a relationship due to trauma given by the world,¡¯ ¡®art therapy accompanied by fine arts, art therapist and trauma¡¯ for the contextualizationdue to an impact of a cause. The results were elicited as ¡®expectations and hesitations provided by the threshold of a recovered life,¡¯ ¡®climbing up the trajectory of a restored life,¡¯ ¡®enjoying a life with entering a different life from before.¡¯
The art therapy process in a person with the experience of trauma was intervened on the basis of the three step trauma recovery by Herman(1997/2022). Step 1 corresponds to the previous art therapy as the stabilization stage. Step 2 conforms to the reconstruction of condolences and memory as the memory processing stage (session 4-32). Step 3 is relevant to the reconnection of memory as the reintegration stage (session 33-45).
The art therapy in a victim traumatized by a violent crime was reconstructed the traumatic memory repetitively. The art work process together with an art therapist led to self-parenting and self-care, thereby having made it available for forming a relationship different from before. This could be known to become a foundation that proceeds with initiatively organizing own life through tightening a will to participate in life and accepting what the traumatic memory is a part of life.
Second, the meanings of art therapy in the recovery process of a victim traumatized by a violent crime were drawn with five things. The contents are as follows. The themes were elicited such as ¡®the ruminative artwork safely dissolved the trauma and pain into images and integrated the traumatic memory into a new schema,¡¯ ¡®the revival of autobiographical care memory, which was expressed in art, reconnected the fragmented memories and made it harmonize with the moments of everyday life,¡¯ ¡®the creative immersion and symbol of art therapy in the inner space of trauma and pain became a renewal space for life, thereby having made it accept self-criticism for trauma and discover a meaning of self-parenting,¡¯ ¡®the sense of proficiency in unfamiliar art media became another self-expression and offered an opportunity of self-regulation for new life,¡¯ ¡®the art therapist accompanied to a signboard and a shelter of a pilgrimage to art therapy, thereby having made it possible to begin own life's journey with becoming a part of traumatic memory.¡¯
With regard to the meanings of this study, first, there is a significance in terms of having empirically examined the recovery process through the long term art therapy in a victim traumatized by a violent crime. Second, there is a significance with respect to having neuroscientifically approached the art therapy intervention in a person with the experience of trauma. Thirdly, there is a significance as to having examined and presented which key experience of art therapy had an impact on the recovery process of a traumatized person. As a suggestion for a follow-up research, a clinical case research on people with diverse traumatic experiences is needed. In a case research of trauma art therapy, a continuous research is demanded for neuroscience and art therapy.