Traumatic experiences can deeply impact us both as children and as adults – how can creative expression and various kinds of therapy help us deal with those impacts?
“I think I’ve spent my adult life dealing with the sense of low self-esteem that [childhood trauma] sort of implanted in me. Somehow I felt not worthy.” Halle Berry
“Some people can be very creative despite trauma, but they are not engaged in a healing process.” Psychotherapist Mihaela Ivan Holtz
“Ignoring trauma doesn’t work because it doesn’t just go away; it can stay with you for a lifetime if untreated. It tends to bubble up into anxiety and or depression when left untreated. HSPs can be even more impacted by trauma.” Therapist Julie Bjelland
“We each collect dings, bruises and even worse along the path. I also believe no matter what indignities, abuses, traumas or set backs we endure, we are NEVER broken. Happiness is for everyone.” – Musician Jewel
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“An abusive relationship would look like that.”
The photo at top is Anna Kendrick from the movie ‘Alice, Darling’ [imdb page] in which she stars, and helped get made as an executive producer.
“I was coming out of a personal experience with emotional abuse and psychological abuse. I think my rep sent [the script] to me, because he knew what I’d been dealing with and sent it along. Because he was like, ‘This sort of speaks to everything that you’ve been talking to me about.’ “
She adds, “I had, frankly, seen a lot of movies about abusive or toxic relationships, and it didn’t really look like what was happening to me. It kind of helped me normalize and minimize what was happening to me, because I thought, ‘Well, if I was in an abusive relationship, it would look like that.’ “
Describing her former relationship, Kendrick shares, “I was in a situation where I loved and trusted this person more than I trusted myself. So when that person is telling you that you have a distorted sense of reality and that you are impossible and that all the stuff that you think is going on is not going on, your life gets really confusing really quickly.
“And I was in a situation where, at the end, I had the unique experience of finding out that everything I thought was going on was in fact going on. So I had this kind of springboard for feeling and recovery that a lot of people don’t get.”
Video: Anna Kendrick on ‘Alice, Darling:’ ‘It was personally very rewarding’ – ABC News Jan 18, 2023
Kendrick acknowledges that given her personal ties to the themes of Alice, Darling, the making of the film “felt incredibly cathartic.”
“But like so many things in life,” she adds, “I think the piece that was most therapeutic was actually building relationships with these collaborators and sharing our personal histories with each other, and then creating this thing together.”
From article Anna Kendrick Says ‘a Personal Experience with Emotional Abuse’ Led Her to New Movie ‘Alice, Darling’ By Nigel Smith, People, September 7, 2022.
video interview:
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How attachment styles and trauma impact our lives and relationships
“Trauma and attachment…get in our way from really being the most we can be – the most expanded part of ourselves.” Diane Poole Heller
“Trauma results in this belief that we are different, that we’re not enough.” Aimie Apigian, MD
Hear podcast episode, see videos and more in this article.
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“I think I’ve spent my adult life dealing with the sense of low self-esteem that sort of implanted in me. Somehow I felt not worthy.”
Halle Berry – commenting in an interview about what motivates her to support and work with an organization that helps women who escape violent homes.
She recalls being terrified that her violent father, who physically abused her mother, would turn on her.
Berry explained, “Before I’m ‘Halle Berry,’ I’m little Halle…a little girl growing in this environment that damaged me…I’ve spent my adult life trying to really heal from that.”
(From a 2010 interview, possibly CNN.)
As Halle Berry noted, one of the consequences for many people who suffer abuse and trauma is a corrosion of their self esteem.
She commented about acting in her intense movie “Gothika” (2003):
“Although physically I would feel exhausted and tired, my back would hurt, my arms would hurt and my feet would be raw from running through all the stuff, there was still something about it that felt good, like I had a cathartic experience.
“I got a lot of stuff out of me that was pent up in little corners of myself, so I felt good at the same time.”
From my article The Alchemy of Art: Creative Expression and Healing, which includes comments by a number of artists including Charlize Theron, Charles Dutton, Director Allison Anders, Native American painter Roxanne Chinook, Rosanne Cash and others.
Photo is from post: Halle Berry on depression, esteem and growth.
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The entertainment business can be very fulfilling for many artists, but also for some an arena of abuse and trauma.
Psychotherapist Mihaela Ivan Holtz works with creative people in TV/Film, performing and fine arts.
She also writes about the emotional and creative pleasures and challenges of their inner lives on her site Creative Minds Psychotherapy.
Here is an excerpt from one of her related articles:
Creative work, healing and unmetabolized trauma
Therapist Mihaela Ivan Holtz, Psy.D., LMFT addresses topics that impact creative people in multiple articles on her site. The image at top comes from her article “How Trauma Affects Creativity.” She writes:
Our creativity is there at all times. It’s a flicker ready to be ignited by our life experiences and turned into a great flame. It wants to guide us along the quest to create a life inspired by our dreams and goals.
All these – our imagination and passion, vulnerability and courage, curiosity and playfulness, trust and determination, talents and skills, exploration and commitment, and our sense of agency – come together to make up our creative emotional space.
The creative emotional space is a beautiful, powerful space that every artist and creative hopes to be in just about all the time.
Unfortunately, it can be diminished or destroyed by our unhealed backstories.
Unresolved emotional trauma can hold us back and take us off track.
Creatives and Artists Respond to Trauma in Different Ways
Some remarkably productive creative people can actively transform their pain into creative endeavors. Their creativity becomes a vehicle for healing.
Their internal healing and growth continues to inspire and motivate them to be more creative. Their creativity and emotional healing work together in a synergistic relationship.
They are healed and transformed by their creative work, and become more and more creative as they face their pain.
Some people can be very creative despite trauma, but they are not engaged in a healing process.
They can access their emotional creative space and make music, movies, novels, books, paintings, fashion, or build businesses, and consistently turn their ideas into reality.
But, when they move outside that creative space, they live with unmetabolized emotional pain. This often shows up as with anxiety, depression, and/or addictions.
Read more in article How Trauma Affects Creativity
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Creative work for healing trauma
Dr. Holtz comments in another article:
Many artists live with unhealed emotional trauma. Some decide to seek help. Some speak publicly about their challenges.
Some even use their own healing journey to encourage other creatives to take the leap and seek help. And, there are those who feel their creativity is their healing power.
She continues:
Through the art that they create, they can see their painful experiences from a safe place, so they can make sense of them and transform them into healing stories.
There are also the artists who stay silent, trying to cope alone.
While some doubt that there’s help, others are just afraid that they’ll lose their creative side and their ability to access that treasure of raw memories and experiences…
Some artists get stuck in a re-traumatizing cycle, telling the same traumatic story over and over again, not allowing themselves to heal or to evolve as humans or as artists.
And some get so stuck in their trauma that they’re unable to access their creative or performing energy.
Trauma becoming the wall that stays between themselves and their art.
Artists who live with unhealed emotional trauma often feel that life feels too real and too unreal all at once.
Are you one of them? Are you an artist who lives with unhealed emotional trauma?
See more in my article How Dealing With Intense Emotions and Trauma Can Release Your Creativity – which includes quotes by multiple artists including Sally Field, a Creative Mind Audio Podcast episode: “Perspectives on Trauma – Evan Rachel Wood and Sia” and more.
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Artists are often Highly Sensitive People and experience trauma more deeply
Julie Bjelland, LMFT, a psychotherapist specializing in high sensitivity, recalls a period of her life when she experienced trauma and emotional impacts:
“I was 17, graduated from high school, and planned for college the first time severe depression and anxiety struck me.
“I was excited about preparing for college when a sudden illness changed everything.
“Ignoring trauma doesn’t work because it doesn’t just go away; it can stay with you for a lifetime if untreated. It tends to bubble up into anxiety and or depression when left untreated.
“HSPs can be even more impacted by trauma. I struggled the whole semester and ended up taking the next semester off. It was then my depression and anxiety hit the hardest. I was in a terrible space and even felt suicidal.
“I didn’t know about trauma, and what I had been through was a trauma. I didn’t know about the trait of high sensitivity and how trauma might be especially hard for me as a sensitive person and that there were some tools I needed and didn’t have.”
From her HSP Blog post “Anxiety and Depression in Highly Sensitive People” – see link to the Blog and much more on her site page Resources Supporting Highly Sensitive People.
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As a child, Andrea Ashworth and her sisters suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse from two stepfathers.
Her memoir, Once in a House on Fire, recounts her experiences. She went on to become one of the youngest research Fellows at Oxford University, where she earned her doctorate.
In our interview, she talked about how writing the memoir was “a real sanity-saving exercise” and a way to deal with her past, and then be able to move on to writing fiction.
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“We each collect dings, bruises and even worse along the path. I also believe no matter what indignities, abuses, traumas or set backs we endure, we are NEVER broken. Happiness is for everyone.” – Musician Jewel
“Trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you. Trauma is that scarring that makes you less flexible, more rigid, less feeling and more defended.” – Gabor Maté MD
“I also think that getting famous should fall under a traumatic category, and I think that’s why a lot of our celebrities are in rehab and killing themselves.” – Musician Sia
Learn more about The Wisdom of Trauma movie and Talks on Trauma interview series with 33+ guests in conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté including Jewel, Jamie Lee Curtis, Mona Haydar, Prentis Hemphill, Ashley Judd, Sia and more artists, coaches and trauma specialists
– See article How to recover from trauma – The Wisdom of Trauma movie and Talks on Trauma series.
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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Many therapists are using EMDR to help people.
Clinical psychologist Cheryl Arutt says it is one of the most powerful ways to reprocess trauma.
She explains more about it in my post Dealing with trauma and abuse to live a bigger, more creative life.
Also in the post, I write briefly about my own very positive experience with her counseling and this form of therapy.
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Learn more on how to understand and heal from trauma.
This page includes a summit, books, courses and other material based on neuroscience research, body-based therapies, mindfulness and meditation, CBT and other therapy approaches.
Learn more in article:
Healing Trauma Resources
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Seeing a therapist in person may be the best choice for many people, but others may prefer online therapy – counseling with a licensed therapist via phone, text, video.
One related article: What To Do When Childhood Trauma Holds You Back, on the BetterHelp site. Article by Sarah Fader, ‘CEO and Founder of Eliezer Tristan Publishing Company, where she is dedicated to sharing the words of authors who endure and survive trauma and mental illness.’
For more about online therapy services, see my article
Online Therapy for Emotional Health and Personal Growth
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Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the The Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to help creative people thrive.”
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