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11/29/08 3:elling without Talking: Breaking the Silence of Domestic Violence | Psychology Today Blogs
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Telling without Talking: Breaking theSilence of Domestic ViolenceBy Cathy Malchiodi on September 26, 2008 in The Healing Arts
Speaking the truth about domestic
violence is a step toward healing for all
survivors. But when talking about violence
brings shame, ambivalence, and fear, art
therapy gives survivors not only a voice,
but also is a way to raise consciousnessabout the profound effects of battering and
all forms of abuse between partners.
While I have no explanation for the
psychology behind the current financial
crisis, as a therapist I am certain of one
psychological effect of an economic turndown -- an increase in domestic
violence. In this time of economic uncertainty, job loss, home foreclosures,
and increased costs of living, pressures mount in families and frayed
tempers inevitably will give way to an increase in battering and abuse.
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, domestic violence is
a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain
power and control over an intimate partner. Physical, sexual, emotional,
economic or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence
another person may all be part of the dynamics, including any behaviorsthat frighten, intimidate, terrorize, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure
or wound another individual.
While domestic violence can happen to anyone of any race, age, sexual
orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, or gender, for the past 25
years I have worked with adult women and child survivors and mostly
those who have found refuge in shelters and safe houses. I suspect that
with the continuing economic rollercoaster, we
will see a rise in not only reports of domestic
violence, but also a strain on these
community-based programs that help women
and children leave abusive relationships.
Although personal safety and a violence-free
life are the first and foremost issues for
anyone who is the victim of domesticviolence, the long term healing process
involves recovery from cumulative trauma,
often posttraumatic stress reactions, and
almost always personal shame and loss of
self. Art therapy, which formally began as a
field and treatment shortly after World War II,
continues to be widely adopted to help
battered women and children deal with their physical and emotional scars.
Art as a healing force does not come easy for those whose lives have
been controlled, are accustomed to betrayal and punishment, and have
learned self-hatred. But inevitably when it does, creativity and imagination
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Cathy Malchiodi is an arttherapist, visual artist,independent scholar, andauthor of 13 books on artstherapies, including The ArtTherapy Sourcebookand thebestselling UnderstandingChildren's Drawings.
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11/29/08 3:elling without Talking: Breaking the Silence of Domestic Violence | Psychology Today Blogs
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restore a sense of possibility, identity, and reconnection with parts of the
self that were silenced in order to survive the violence. While survivors
often feel shame in talking about abuse, talking about their artworks is an
experience of finally coming home.
The tradition of art as a voice for domestic violence survivors has
spawned a number of well-known programs, including the Clothesline
Project, a project to address violence against women. In 1990, visual
artist Rachel Carey-Harper, inspired by the AIDS quilt, presented the
concept of using shirts hanging on a clothesline as a way to raise
consciousness. Since doing the laundry was always considered women's
work and women often exchanged information over backyard fences whilehanging their clothes out to dry,
the concept of the clothesline
became the vehicle. Each year
thousands of women now tell
their stories of survivaland
commemorate victims who died
from domestic violenceby
using words and/or artwork to
decorate a t-shirt to be exhibited
on a clothesline. And programs
such as A Window Between
Worlds in Venice, CA, serve as
models for how art helps both
women and children develop a sense of hope, possibility, and safety.
In her seminal volume, Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman echoes the
very reason that violence must be transformed in some way in order for
recovery to begin: Certain violations are too terrible to utter out loud: this
is the meaning of the word unspeakable Atrocities, however, refuse to
be buried. Domestic violence is one of those atrocities that continues to
plague lives and for its survivors, is often too horrific to verbalize.
Unfortunately, it may increase and intensify in these weeks and months if
the expected financial crises continue. And while art is not the panacea for
abuse, it is certainly a way through it and one that not only transforms the
atrocities of violence, but also sends a powerful message that ultimately
breaks the silence.
If you need help, please contact National Domestic Violence Hotline at
http://www.ndvh.org/ or phone 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). October is
Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
2008 Cathy Malchiodi
www.cathymalchiodi.com
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