Creating a Framework: Art Therapy Elicits the Narrative

A case study illustrates how art therapy was used to elicit the narrative of an adolescent male student in transition from incarceration to a transfer school setting. Childhood trauma was addressed in individual sessions and within a literacy group co-led by a reading specialist. The art therapist responded to the client's needs by broadening the scope of art therapy with both art and writing. From careful observation and listening to the adolescent's verbal clues about past trauma, the therapist developed familiar, structured worksheets that helped the student focus and safely explore his feelings. The art therapeutic process created a framework from which to understand patterns of attachment and past trauma on the resulting narrative.