Given the traumatic nature of human history, how have we managed to survive and thrive? The answer lies in attachment – connection to each other and the social group from cradle to grave (Bloom, 2013). Perry (2013) argues that our ancestors developed rhythmic practices to heal trauma and loss. Amongst aboriginal cultures many common healing principles are present. The core elements in these rituals include creating a meaningful narrative within a broader belief system that can make sense of the trauma; the trauma gets re-enacted creatively through the arts in words, dance and song; different somatosensory experiences are employed including touch, and patterned repetitive movements; and all of this occurs in an intensely relational environment with the whole clan participating. This provides a total neurobiological experience that accesses all the different parts of the brain by retelling the story, holding each other, massaging, moving and singing.
Images of the trauma are created in which literature, sculpture and drama are used (Perry, 2013). The victim is reconnected with loved ones, the community celebrates, eats and shares, processing these experiences together. These healing practices are ‘repetitive, rhythmic, relevant, relational, respectful and rewarding’. This alters the dysregulated stress response, bringing the community and the person back into balance. Cultures from around the world converge on these general principles as they were passed from generation to generation because they worked. Cultural practices evolved as mechanisms that buffered groups against distress, dysregulation and disconnection that can arise in response to adversity. Perry (2021) has pointed out that there is an irony in the fact that the very cultures that hold the key to healing our modern ills are those that have been marginalised in the modern world.
Cathy Machiodi (2020) describes her experience applying the arts for healing beyond clinical settings in churches, tribal lands, disaster sites and neighbourhoods. In addition to mental health professionals, many others apply the principles of expressive arts to transformational work in the community and wider society. The experience of creating art together can create a sense of community and being part of a whole, which cultivates identity through sharing experience, even when those experiences are of adversity. Machiodi describes going into communities in the aftermath of trauma and drawing on the community’s resources of hymns, songs, payers and rituals to soothe distress. She uses the term ‘healing practices’ to describe practices that evolved within cultural groups to promote health and well-being like rituals, conventions, and ceremonies in response to trauma and loss.
Machiodi (2020) argues the expressive arts are a ‘strong foundation’ for best practice in healing trauma. She puts these traditional approaches into four categories: Movement (dance, yoga etc.), sound (music and music-making), storytelling (role play, drama, visual art etc.) and silence (meditation, art and others that quiet the mind and regulate the body). These approaches help us re-experience oneself, re-sensitise and re-connect – the three R’s at the core of how cultures have used expressive arts to heal throughout history. The fact that humans have always use these approaches is a form of evidence for their efficacy.
O Crualoioch (2003) argues that traditional stories served as a kind of therapy in pre-modern times and so can be viewed as a ‘therapeutic creative resource’ that works through enlarging and enriching the imagination. In the Irish tradition, legends that centre around the ‘wise woman’ in particular play a similar role to psychotherapy. The term coimcne was used a thousand years ago to mean ‘mutual wisdom’ that emerged from the cultural discourse that helped understand life experience and guide social behaviour. Through the symbolic and imaginative life of cultural discourses experiences are intensified and affirmed through artistic and ritual performances by the story-teller, poet, the priest, musician or healer. Different cultures have created sacred practices that serve a healing purpose ranging from sex, music, art, dance, stories, jokes and the construction of monuments (Sterling).
In Trauma trails, Judy Atkinson (2002) describes traditional healing from an aboriginal Australian perspective:
“During a time of great pain and crisis in my life, my great grannie came to me and gave me a gift. She sent a dream…I asked ‘What do we do now?’ And the answer came ‘We come here, and we sit with each other. We tell our stories. We grieve together. And we dance and we sing together. If we do this, as we listen to each other’s stories, in our grieving, in our singing, in our dancing, we give power to each other for the healing to begin…”
References
Atkinson, J. (2002). Trauma trails, recreating song lines: The Transgenerational effects of trauma in Indigenous Australia. Spinifex Press.
Bloom, S. L. (2013). Creating sanctuary: Toward the evolution of sane societies. Routledge.
Crualaoich, G. Ó. (2006). The book of the cailleach: Stories of the wise-woman healer.
Perry, B. D. (2013). Brief: Reflections on Childhood, Trauma and Society. The ChildTrauma Academy Press.
Winfrey, O., & Perry, D. B. (2021). What happened to you?: Conversations on trauma, resilience, and healing. Boxtree.