Polyvagal theory advocates for working with the body, becoming aware of the body and connecting with the senses. Similarly, paying attention to and influencing one’s physical and sensory experience is a core aspect of the creative arts and psychomotor therapies. Polyvagal theory offers opportunities for strengthening resilience by treating emotion-regulation problems, stress, and trauma, as well as restoring regulation of the autonomic nervous system. Paying attention to and influencing physical and sensory experiences are core aspects of creative arts and psychomotor therapies. This theoretical paper explores how polyvagal theory can serve as a foundational theory and support the creative arts and psychomotor therapies for emotion regulation in stress and trauma.
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Understanding and processing life experiences are essential in the treatment of personality disorders to promote personal recovery and psychological wellbeing. In this qualitative case report, drafted in co‐creation between the client, clinical psychologist, and art therapist, individual treatment consisted of two psychotherapeutic interventions, “An Empowering Story” and life‐story‐focused art therapy, in 12 parallel sessions for 24 weeks. Hilda, 68 years of age, had been diagnosed with an unspecified personality disorder and various traits of borderline personality disorder. She experienced emotional exhaustion following long‐term mental health problems rooted in a traumatic early childhood. This affected her ability to manage her emotions and social relations, resulting in the sense that her life had no meaning. Hilda was invited to reconstruct her life experiences, divided into the past, turning point, and present/future, in a written and a painted life story. This allowed for the integration of traumatic as well as positive memories, enhanced self‐compassion, and meaning making. She developed self‐reflection and integration of internal conflicts leading to a better emotional balance and self‐understanding. Art therapy emphasizes bottom‐up regulatory processes, while narrative psychology supports top‐down regulatory processes. The combined approach effectively integrated bottom‐up, experiential, sensory experiences with top‐down, cognitive emotion‐regulation processes. The results suggest that psychotherapeutic interventions involving a multi‐pronged, complementary, and thus more holistic approach can support personal recovery in personality disorders
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Introduction Treatments such as eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing and (narrative) exposure therapies are commonly used in psychological trauma. In everyday practice, art therapy is also often used, although rigorous research on its efficacy is lacking. Patients seem to benefit from the indirect, non-verbal experiential approach of art therapy. This protocol paper describes a study to examine the effectiveness of a 10-week individual trauma-focused art therapy (TFAT) intervention. Methods and analysis A mixed-methods multiple-baseline single-case experimental design will be conducted with 25–30 participants with psychological trauma. Participants will be randomly assigned to a baseline period lasting 3–5 weeks, followed by the TFAT intervention (10 weeks) and follow-up (3 weeks). Quantitative measures will be completed weekly: the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Mental Health Continuum Short Form, the Resilience Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Self-expression and Emotion Regulation in Art Therapy Scale. The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-5 will be completed at week 1 and week 10. Qualitative instruments comprise a semistructured interview with each individual patient and therapist, and a short evaluation for the referrer. Artwork will be used to illustrate the narrative findings. Quantitative outcomes will be analysed with linear mixed models using the MultiSCED web application. Qualitative analyses will be performed using thematic analysis with ATLAS.ti. Ethics and dissemination This study has been approved by the ethics committee of the HAN University of Applied Sciences (ECO 394.0922). All participants will sign an informed consent form and data will be treated confidentially. Findings will be published open access in peer-reviewed journals.
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