What is anxiety? Anxiety is avoidance, having your head in the future, procrastinating because you ’ re afraid it won ’ t be perfect, canceling plans because you ’ ve overthought and catastrophized them, not showing up in your life because of the bad ‘ what ifs, ’ staying silent when you have something to say, taking your dinner home because you ’ re afraid to sit with others, isolating yourself even though you long for connection, getting burn out from stressing yourself out and not being able to stop anyway, reading the same sentence over again because you aren ’ t present, driving somewhere and turning around because you ’ re late, not going to class because you don ’ t have your homework, using drugs or alcohol to take the edge off in social settings, escaping to the bathroom in social settings, needing a buddy to go anywhere, blushing, looking away to hide your blushing, avoiding certain situations because you ’ re afraid your anxiety might spike or you might have an anxiety attack, experiencing an anxiety attack, etc. These are real life examples of what it is like to live with anxiety. It boils down to the fear that we are not enough and the result of our effort will not be enough. Anxiety is something that I have struggled with before I even had the self-awareness to seek help and information.
If the mind is in the present, there is no room for past or future. The past creates depression and the future creates anxiety. Doing activities that keep us grounded in the present diverts our minds attention from problem solving to present task. Often times, anxiety comes from ruminating on negative thoughts. If we ruminated on positive thoughts (also known as gratitude), there would be no problem because it would give us energy. Stress is a mental attitude and can turn physical; it is all inter connected.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Our creative mind always needs to be at work. When it is not at work, it is like having a large dog that is used to being active but instead is sitting in the house. It starts to dig at the couch, tear up furniture, and get in all kinds of trouble. Similarly, this occurs without mind when we don ’ t put it to work, it starts to default to negative things instead of the 10 most beautiful things we experienced in the past day or the things we ’ re experiencing at the moment. Mandala is just another technique to put our creative mind at work and avoid the idle playground of the devil. Humans are naturally drawn to spherical objects. “ As the ultimate curvilinear shape, the circle embodies all of the attributes that attract us: it is a safe, gentle, pleasant, graceful, dreamy, and even beautiful shape that evokes calmness, peacefulness, and relaxation. The practice of drawing this shape has been done for meditative purposes and spiritual practices for centuries. It puts our minds chatter on hold even if just for the time being of coloring in or drawing a mandala. Our mind cannot focus on the task ahead of us because we are engulfed in the experience of what we are currently doing. It brings us to a state in which we try to live life one foot in front of the other, one action at a time.
A study was conducted at a small liberal arts college to test whether free form coloring or coloring in a mandala for 20 minutes reduced anxiety. Students were first asked to rate their current level of anxiety on a 9 point scale from “ no anxiety ” to “ extremely anxious. ” Then, they were instructed to write on a piece of paper a time in their life they felt the most fearful for four minutes. Finally, the students were randomly selected to one of three groups, including a mandala group, plaid group, and free coloring group. After 20 minutes the students were then asked to rate, their anxiety levels on the scale to note any improvement or increase in anxiety. Overwhelmingly, the outcome of this experiment supported the theory that mandalas do in fact decrease anxiety. The plaid group reported having lower levels of anxiety than the free form coloring group but higher than the mandala group.
In addition to the importance of art therapy interventions, research reveals that art therapy facilitate in treating survivors of sexual assault. Concerning the traumatic encounters among kids abused sexually, the effects are felt by the child together with the family members of the kid. Non-offending caregivers portray tremendous distress levels, which hinder their capacities for supporting their kids effectively when the support is most vital. The psychological influences attributed to sexual abuse result to stigmatization, trust betrayal, and a sense of hopelessness, which leads to considerable and unique type of suffering. Foster parents, spouses, as well as other caregivers experience conflicting and powerful emotions while at the same time required to support abused children during a time when they feel least emotionally capable of doing so. The support levels that non-offending mothers manage to offer has considerable effects on sexually abused kids. The extent of maternal support after disclosure of the issue influences the future adjustment of the child due to its positive effects on subsequent traumatic influences. Absence of maternal support relates with increased psychopathology on the victims part. When the non-offending caregivers provide immediate and effective, the approach is crucial to establishing positive outcomes on the side of the victims.
Since caregivers or parents experience trauma either vicariously or directly from the traumatic encounters of their children, they need treatment that focuses on trauma to assist them in overcoming the depressive experiences as well as other forms of distress that result from abuse. In addition, research carried out on traumatized adults reveals that emergence of trauma narrative becomes indispensable when it comes to incorporating feelings and thoughts to a meaningful experience. Disclosing information concerning what took place can be compared to cleaning a wound, which might be painful initially while the pain disappears later while it does not become infected hence healing quickly. In this vein, the trauma narrative serves as a key area of focus during the recovery process. Numerous other studies support the idea of supporting the efficiency of incorporating the trauma narrative into treatment that focuses on trauma.
Concerning the mapping as a form of therapy intervention, it plays a crucial role in creating a graphical trauma narrative. It is perceived as an effective tool that facilitates in the reduction of confusion while adhering to the emotional distress of the caregivers concerning the trauma that their children experience. It also optimizes their capacity got being supportive past any of the interventions offered to children directly. A tangible and visual map is possible to process and view in segments. It is also possible to review when necessary and shared with other persons since it would not disappear in the same manner that words do when it comes to conventional therapy.
The therapeutic mapping approach has its origins in prior family therapy studies. A mapping approach utilized simile geometric shapes and line drawings to depict the “ transactional patterns ” in line with ways that family members interacted with each other and opted to control their behavior within the household. Following this mapping method assisted therapists to realize family boundaries, including diffuse, rigid, or clear while defining transactional approaches, including disengaged or enmeshed. The therapist would develop several maps in an effort to highlight the nature and functioning of the interpersonal relationships that existed within a family unit. In this sense, mapping served as a method that therapists utilized in an effort to assess the functioning and interaction levels within a family. Here, researchers developed the “ map-markers inside the therapist ” notion in an effort aimed at reorganizing the structure of the family.
By contrast, other researchers developed a therapeutic model referred to as the “ conjoint family therapy. ” The model allowed families to create their unique maps together with life chronologies, which would facilitate in the identification of experienced and patterns within a family. While believing that persons have inborn capabilities for redesigning and reengineering their individual lives, researchers required family members to develop simple timelines with symbols and lines to depict their goals as well as barriers that hindered them from realizing the goals. The simple maps were believed to assist in bringing interactions within family members clearly to allow them realize increased functioning levels.
In the recent years, the “ road drawings ” model has served as a form of map, which offers patients with therapeutic metaphors for change and reparation. Road drawings can facilitate in assessing and stabilizing patients particularly when a family is facing a crisis that results from a sexually abused child. It can also facilitates in repairing and rebuilding families as well. Visual mapping can serve as an ideal tool for assisting families to cope with crisis themselves. Mapping the maze attributed to trauma can address the therapeutic requirements of non-offending caregivers for ensuring that their lives return to normal upon sexual abuse disclosure inside a family. The structured state of the mapping approach helps the caregivers in stabilizing the crisis they face and commence restoring order. Since caregivers establish the method as opposed to therapists, it is unique as well as personal to the situation of each family. It authenticates the capability of the family to find its individual means of coping while describing the unique concerns and emotions of the caregivers. Establishing unique graphic representation or incidents that took place prior, during, as well as after disclosure makes it possible for the caregivers to commence the process establishing order after the confusion attributed to this form of destabilizing trauma.
In conclusion, art therapy has been found as an ideal means of dealing with various forms of trauma and the anxiety that they create. Various art therapy approaches prevail while they facilitate in dealing with various forms of medical situations that individuals portray. In the event of sexual abuse disclosures among families, they result to instant crisis within the family unit of the child especially when it comes to responding instantly to the victim ’ s needs. In this sense, the visual mapping approach serves as a means of therapy intervention when it comes to supporting caregivers in establishing order out of the chaos resulting from disclosure of sexual abuse in families. This form of mapping supports the needs of caregivers to relate to the trauma narratives to other persons. They also manage to identify as well as process powerful emotions, establish skills for coping, realize past together with future threats attributed to additional victimization, and set future goals. Overall, the paper relates to the concepts learned in class based on the manner in which it focuses on art as a means of therapy intervention to various traumatic incidents that people experience in life, such as sexual assault.
