Using Art As a Healing Tool

By: A Window Between Worlds (AWBW)

Women who leave their batterers and seek refuge in a shelter have taken a courageous first step. Yet in order to fully reclaim their lives and make healthy decisions for their future and that of their children, these women need a way to re-examine their feelings and develop a stronger sense of self and personal vision. For many women and children in the shelters, art offers "A Window Between Worlds," helping them to transition out of a painful past into a more hopeful future, recovering their sense of safety, power, possibility, and identity.

Unfortunately, due to the challenges of a crisis environment and the pressing needs for legal, medical, and employment assistance, an art program can fall to the back burner. Although art workshops provide some of the most significant and meaningful experiences for shelter residents, shelters are often unable to make an art program a priority. This is where A Window Between Worlds offers a hand.

Since 1991, A Window Between Worlds has supported the recovery of thousands of battered women and children by offering them the healing and empowering tool of the creative arts. In the pages of this Information Bulletin, we outline the specific ways AWBW assists domestic violence agencies in sharing art as a healing tool.

Please know that you do not have to be an "artist" to use art as a healing tool. You are welcome to become a part of the AWBW family of shelters, art leaders, and survivors using art as a part of ending the cycle of violence.

In the words of one survivor,
"We are learning that creating heals the pain."

The following are a few of the ways art is uniquely useful in the healing process:

Recovering a Sense of Safety:

The art medium offers a private, non-threatening avenue through which a survivor can begin to communicate with herself. For both women and children, the art session creates a very special "safety zone."

Recovering a Sense of Relaxation:

Many of the adult shelter residents experience the art sessions as their "only time for themselves"- a time during which they regroup their energies from the pressing struggles for housing, employment, childcare, medical and legal assistance. Likewise, for the children, the art sessions are geared to provide a relaxing and energizing experience.

Recovering a Sense of Power:

For women and children who have been living under the control of another human being for so long, a simple art experience can provide a powerful opportunity to notice for the first time that they have the freedom to decide what they want to create.

Recovering a Sense of Possibility:

Art provides an arena in which women and children can discover that they are capable of creating beauty and expressing emotions that they had previously considered out of reach.

Recovering a Sense of Identity:

Art provides the women and children with tangible evidence of their positive experience and powerful break throughs - concrete reminders which can help them to maintain their sense of identity through the tough times which accompany any deep transformation.

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