Date of Award

Spring 5-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

EVMS School of Health Professions

Program/Concentration

Art Therapy & Counseling

Abstract

A survivor of suicide’s self-exploration process was explored to investigate the efficacy and applicability of specific therapeutic art and writing tasks proposed in the original methodology for the study of an art therapy group with survivors of suicide. Based on personal reflections throughout the self-exploration process, the researcher improved the original study design by modifying the sequence of tasks and adding supplemental art and writing exercises to sessions in consideration of evocative material that had the potential to elicit a severe trauma response due to recalling traumatic memories. Two standardized measures, the PTSD Checklist-Civilian Version, and the Trauma Symptom Checklist-40, were added to the instrumentation as pre and posttest measures for the purpose of providing more quantitative evidence to explore the efficacy of the intervention. A Participant Expectation Survey was also created for use as a pretest measure to be compared with subjective responses on the posttest Participant Satisfaction Survey in a qualitative analysis. A content analysis of artwork and poetry indicated themes of hope, transcendence, duality, chaos, change/transformation, horror vacui, growth/healing/rebuilding, acceptance, destruction, confusion, anger, and despair, with a noticeable transition from negative to positive themes as the self-exploration process continued. Results of the self-exploration provided evidence to suggest that the proposed group intervention may be beneficial for survivors of suicide. Furthermore, the results support the notion that art therapy should be further explored as an effective means to process general grief reactions as well as grief reactions to suicide.

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DOI

10.25777/br79-pk72

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