How can creative art therapy heal trauma in an adopted child?

Updated on September 19, 2020

Adoption might fulfill your wish to bring home a child you always wanted, but it leads to many challenges. The crucial problem is to understand the child and his or her thoughts and needs. Most families fail to comprehend that the adopted child might have a behavioral issue until an unpleasant breakout. Today, there have been incidents that an adopted child cannot communicate correctly with the family because of his or her inner trauma and abuse. Here it is essential to work with an expert adoption therapist who uses innovative therapies, such as creative art therapy, to deal and heal the issue at hand.

Understanding creative art therapy

Most families are used to psychotherapy as the best answer to behavioral issues or other therapies to combat stress and emotional anxiety. Today, the field of treatment is advancing at a fast pace. And that makes the expert adoption therapist look at their services and therapies through a new lens. The expert adoption therapists are adding creative art therapy to help adopted children voice their issues and heal. Here, the therapist uses creative arts to heal inner wounds that get ingrained in the child and can lead to self-limiting beliefs and thoughts. To know more about this, you can check out Becca Leitman Psychotherapy in Brooklyn, NY

Are you thinking about how can creative arts therapy help in healing trauma in the adopted child? If yes, the following pointers can help:

  • It helps the child to articulate the trauma

There’s no particular source of trauma! Adopted children might have belonged to a disturbed household before or have witnessed sexual abuse that gave rise to the emotional trauma. Through creative art therapy, the adoption therapist encourages the child to face and express the shock and inner tension without getting caught up in the stress associated with it.

  • There are several mediums

Every trauma is individual and affects an adopted child differently. Hence, the adoption therapist opt-in for different creative arts therapy mediums of healing the issue at hand. On a broader scale, the therapists use a sand tray, play, and art therapy to address the emotional abuse and trauma in a child. The way children use each medium of their choice to manifest an art piece suggests the extent to which they got affected. And the therapist can keep using the same medium to allow the child to use his or her imagination to come up with endless creations, which will ultimately heal him or her.

  • The therapy is unique

For centuries we have heard that art heals! Hence, adoption therapists use creative techniques to help an adopted child understand his or her potential as they release and heal their trauma. It helps to undo the past brain conditioning and free them from all the dense emotions they have held within. It allows children to imbibe a positive mindset as they get healed.

Healing trauma in adopted children through creative arts takes time. Foster parents need to ensure that their child participates in the therapy sessions prepared by the adoption therapists. Patience plays a crucial role, and with time the child will heal within.

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