Many children and adolescents have experienced some form of trauma. They may have experienced a death or loss in their family or among friends. Or they may have experienced attachment trauma when parents have been unable to meet their needs. Some children are exposed to violence in their community or in society, especially when countries experience instability and war.
Trauma can also happen at school, through targeting or bullying by peers. Sometimes, even seemingly insignificant events can be experienced as overwhelming or traumatic for a child.
The long-term impact of trauma is closely connected to the support a child receives after the event. When children receive support, affection, and care after a traumatic experience, trauma symptoms may last around six weeks before they start to fade. But, in other cases, trauma symptoms can persist in the long term.
Some children with long-term trauma symptoms may be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But PTSD among children is complex to define and assess. This means that some children may live with the impact of trauma but not meet the criteria for a diagnosis.
If children experience multiple, ongoing traumatic events, they may develop a type of PTSD called complex PTSD.
What is the Impact of Childhood Trauma?
Young people who have experienced trauma may have intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and flashbacks about the event. They may be hypervigilant, constantly scanning the world around them for potential threats. They may have low self-esteem and feel afraid or ashamed, or experience numbness and detachment from their surroundings.
Childhood trauma can also have a significant effect on relationships, especially interpersonal trauma. Young people may struggle to trust others and avoid intimacy. Or they may be scared of abandonment and make frantic attempts to prevent it.
Research shows that childhood trauma increases the risk of developing mental health disorders, including eating disorders, personality disorders, depression, and anxiety. A Lancet study in the UK found that almost a third of young people had experienced some form of trauma, which doubled the chance of developing a mental health disorder.
Treating Children Who Have Experienced Trauma
If unaddressed, childhood trauma can have a significant impact on a young person’s life, affecting their mental health, relationships, and physical well-being. This means that providing effective treatment to young people who have experienced trauma is really important.
There are several different treatment approaches that can support children and adolescents in recovering from trauma. These include cognitive-behavioural therapy, cognitive processing therapy, eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Therapies should always be adapted to suit a young person’s developmental age.
What is Creative Arts Therapy?
Creative arts therapy is a widespread approach for treating childhood trauma. It may involve a variety of therapies, including dance therapy, music therapy, art therapy, drama therapy, and psychodrama.
Creative arts therapy doesn’t rely on verbal expression, meaning it can surpass language barriers that may exist within groups and communities. It is also inclusive for neurodiverse people and other people who may find it hard to, or prefer not to, express emotions with words. It can be adapted for young children who often communicate and learn through creativity and play.
Children who begin trauma therapy are often confused, ashamed, or untrustworthy of others. Therapists need to find a way to form productive relationships to work through traumatic events. In this context, creative arts can help children engage with and trust a therapist, building connections through shared creative experience.
Emotions, Sensations, and the Brain
When a person experiences trauma, they may be unable to assimilate and integrate their experience. Their sensory and emotional memories separate, and, rather than being processed like an ordinary memory that becomes less intense with time, they continue to resurface as intense emotions, images, nightmares, behaviours, and pain. Trauma memories may be stored in the brain as separated emotional and sensory traces, rather than as an organised narrative.
From a neurological perspective, the impact of trauma is imprinted on the brain, altering neural systems involved with psychological and behavioural processes. Brain regions involved in emotional responses are programmed to respond to particular sensory stimuli that it associates with the traumatic event. In contrast, the part of the brain that analyses experiences and associates them with other knowledge is deactivated.
The neurological basis of trauma suggests that creative arts practices, which focus on sensory experiences, may play a key role in healing. The neural systems altered by trauma can be affected by repeated sensory stimulation, which may be created through dance, music, massage, and other ‘arts’. Through this process, trauma responses may gradually fade.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Creative Arts Therapy for Childhood Trauma
Empirical studies have only recently started assessing the effectiveness of creative arts therapy. Until now, most studies have been unable to provide precise, analyzable results, often due to inconsistencies and vagueness in measuring symptoms, processes, and outcomes. However, results from studies are encouraging, and experts call for further research into its effectiveness, particularly among children and young people.
Creative Arts and Traditional Healing Rituals for Trauma
Throughout history, communities have been affected by traumatic events. In response, societies and cultures have developed rituals and healing practices to cope with loss and trauma.
When examining the practices of different indigenous cultures from a wide range of places, we can see that they tend to share certain core elements. These include creating a narrative or rationale for the event, re-telling the trauma through words, song, or dance, and sets of sensory experiences, such as touch or the movements of a dance or music. These rituals all took place as part of a group, such as the family or community.
These practices also resonate with the neurobiology of trauma. They centre around repetition, sensory experience, and relations, all of which can impact humans’ stress response systems. In contemporary clinical settings, creative arts therapy and other approaches can draw from and reflect these traditions.
The Wave Clinic – Specialist Recovery Support for Young People
The Wave Clinic provides specialized mental health support for young people and their families. We provide trauma-focused, family-centred residential and outpatient care through a diverse selection of treatment modalities.
We take a whole-person approach to mental health recovery, supporting young people in developing life skills, continuing their education, and learning through enriching experiences alongside clinical care.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our programs, get in touch today.
