Creative Arts Therapy as treatment for child trauma: An overview

To address child trauma caused by events that affect children directly, such as abuse, or indirectly, such as divorce, creative arts therapies are used by creative arts therapists as well as psychologists and counselors. The purpose of this paper is to review such interventions and the research conducted throughout the last 12 years. We considered the methodology used, the population under study and theoretical frameworks, with specific attention given to the reliability, validity and trustworthiness of such research findings. The results showed that the majority of articles reported their findings narratively, with much emphasis placed on the process followed. It was recommended that therapists work closely with researchers to make creative arts therapies less of an outlier in the therapeutic approaches for traumatized children.