This weekend just past, I greeted and hugged a friend who had lost his 51 year old brother the day before, from a sudden heart attack. When my eyes met his, and I put my arms around him, he said faintly, “Don’t say words. Words are useless”. I said nothing other than with my facial expression and demeanour as I funnelled all the words I might have said into the squeeze.
Losing a loved one is a traumatic experience that almost everyone will go through in life. The loss of a close sibling – one who shares all your common childhood memories and epic tales of a lifetime can be one of the most difficult to bear. Many speak of the ineffability of grief in that words are a poor, and limiting construct, failing to adequately express the depth of feeling… that devastatingly visceral ache that pounds the shores of one’s soul like a raging sea.
So why is this so? What’s going on in the brain to cause the power of speech to abandon us during these times of extreme emotional duress? Well… there is a little bit of science behind it that I’d like to share which helps to explain why art therapy is so useful. When traumatised, the brain is heavily engaged in rumination about the event, so to compensate for the impaired natural response time required to survive, our biology adapts to protect us by dialling down its reliance on the frontal lobes during the traumatic experience. This is the part of the brain that is responsible for cognition, comprehension, and language processing. In frontal lobe hibernation mode, the trauma survivor is often unable to access a vocabulary to coherently express themselves.
The part of the brain that is responsible for processing emotion, imagery and creativity however, is still in full tilt. Art therapy can be a valuable and accessible tool for the bereaved, in being able to externalise and cognitively process the phenomenon of the loss, thereby helping them to overcome the emotional impact of the experience. Symbolic and metaphoric language developed through the construction of imagery can assist the grieving person to plumb the depths of their despair in a safe and therapeutic environment.
For those who may not know, I also moonlight as a civil celebrant, which means I often enjoy the privilege of witnessing the happiest day of peoples lives. From time to time, I am also called upon to bear witness to the darkest moments endured by families who have lost someone they love. Occasionally, a member of the bereaved family expresses interest in using art therapy to move through the difficult emotional terrain of their trauma.
This little story in the May edition of Australia’s Good Health magazine happened to come about when journalist, Bonnie Bayley asked me to help her with a story about how art can help to heal grief. One of my clients agreed to share her story which you can read below.
If you know of someone who is going through loss and grief and might benefit from art therapy, please get in touch with me at Adelaide Art Therapy via email or Phone +61 8 7200 0311.
(For celebrant enquiries, visit ribbonsgate.com.au)
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