Download the thesis - South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault

implicit and explicit memories into a comprehensive narrative of trauma and its
aftermath (Rothschild 150) and the reconfiguration of a victim’s belief that all close
relationships are dangerous, thus enabling more satisfactory connections with others.
This is a form of “social recovery”, as trauma psychiatrist Richard Mollica puts it. Once
a victim reaches the understanding and experiences the trauma as a past experience,
and functions well in social, work and family situations the goals of therapy have been
met, says Mollica (Mollica; Mollica, Chhim and Mitchell).
While the efficacy of trauma therapy for many victims is accepted, substantial
impediments to achieving these goals are also well documented. In addition to the
difficulties of fully capturing the trauma in thought, memory and speech there is the
struggle to encompass the full range of human responses to it, particularly the
challenging emotions. Avoidance and distractions are other problems. These can
impede a victim from reaching a comprehensive acknowledgement of and resolution to
the trauma.
Many external factors also contribute to wellbeing following trauma, loss and grief.
Rothschild suggests trauma therapists take an inventory of a client’s resources when
taking the trauma history. In an inventory of resources, which she notes are acquired
before and after the trauma, Rothschild names functional, physical, interpersonal,
psychological and spiritual resources, and includes creativity as a psychological
resource. The inventory can raise survivors’ awareness of the resources they have
already used in overcoming the trauma and its aftermath and draws attention to the
significant part survivors played in their own survival. A survivor with a range and
number of resources has a better prognosis for recovery (Rothschild 188). One
question being asked in this thesis is what contribution to a trauma survivor’s
resources can be offered by art, the artist and art-making.
How creative community participation can help victims reach a sense of wellbeing is
one consideration in this thesis. There is much to be gained by reconnecting those
isolated by trauma with the world around and finding a community of people with
whom there is a shared experience (Laub, Herman). Winter uses the term “fictive kin”
to describe a group created through a shared experience coming together for a specific
purpose. In embracing the idea of a chosen family, the term denies the paradox of
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