Photo Essay: Perspectives from Sierra Leone's Youth
Throughout the 1990s, West Africa witnessed protracted, intertwined, and mineral-fueled conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Although Sierra Leone’s civil war was initially a battle for control of the government and the diamond fields, the conflict soon devolved into acts of brutality against civilians perpetrated by all sides. After several collapsed peace accords and a failed Nigerian-led intervention, a fragile peace was finally established in 2000 by the British military (Keen 2005). The United Nations assisted with the rebuilding of the country and oversaw democratic elections in 2002. In Sierra Leone, the tragedy left nearly 50,000 dead and scarred the minds, and often the bodies, of the living (Hirsch 2001). Since the war, several local and international organizations have worked to rehabilitate and assist war-affected individuals. One such organization is iEARN Sierra Leone, which seeks to empower war-affected youth through creative expression while also providing training in practical skills. As part of a 2007 collaborative effort between iEARN and the Art Department of the University of the South (USA), I taught a “Literacy through Photography” (LTP) course at the iEARN youth center in Freetown, Sierra Leone. LTP was developed by Wendy Ewald as a means for facilitating critical thought and self-expression by enabling students to portray, and reflect upon, their own lives and communities in photography and writing (Hyde 2001). LTP is a form of art therapy, an approach to rehabilitation that uses the creative process to enable catharsis and healing, especially in traumatized populations (Eaton 2007). During iEARN’s
A review of research and methods used to establish art therapy as an effective treatment method for traumatized children
Art therapy uses creative expression to provide individuals with a safe outlet for expressing thoughts and emotions to successfully facilitate recovery from psychological distress. The present study reviews the efficacy of art therapy as a method for treating traumatized children. Published, peer-reviewed literature that focused exclusively on the use of art therapy for treating children who had experienced a traumatic event was included in this review. This study found that art therapy was used successfully in a variety of contexts as a treatment regimen for traumatized children. Several methodological and statistical issues are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided in this review.
The Use of Art Therapy with Abused Children
With reports of the incidence of child abuse in Britain increasing, art therapists are regularly coming into contact with children suffering from the resultant psychological trauma. A central issue is the right of children to be listened to and taken seriously when making allegations of abuse. To this end I explore the possibility of spontaneous art therapy images being used in the diagnosis of abuse and illustrate my hypotheses with images made by children I treated using art therapy. My findings are compared with those made by other clinicians, and I try to establish the important role art therapy plays in helping children explore their trauma, disclose their abuse and come to terms with their experience through visual expression.