Healing Trauma With Guided Drawing: A Sensorimotor Art Therapy Approach to Bilateral Body Mapping, Library Edition

by Cornelia Elbrecht, Cathy A. Malchiodi (Contributor), Elizabeth Wiley (Narrator)

A body-focused, trauma-informed art therapy that will appeal to art therapists, somatic experiencing practitioners, bodyworkers, artists, and mental health professionals

While art therapy traditionally focuses on therapeutic image-making and the cognitive or symbolic interpretation, Cornelia Elbrecht instructs listeners how to facilitate the body-focused approach of guided drawing. Clients draw with both hands and eyes closed as they focus on their felt sense. Physical pain, tension, and emotions are expressed without words through bilateral scribbles. Clients then, with an almost massage-like approach, find movements that soothe their pain, discharge inner tension and emotions, and repair boundary breaches. Archetypal shapes allow therapists to safely structure the experience in a nonverbal way. Sensorimotor art therapy is a unique and self-empowering application of somatic experiencing—it is both body-focused and trauma-informed in approach—and assists clients who have experienced complex traumatic events to actively respond to overwhelming experiences until they feel less helpless and overwhelmed and are then able to repair their memories of the past. Elbrecht provides listeners with the context of body-focused, trauma-informed art therapy and walks them through the thinking behind and process of guided drawing.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Art, Mental Health, Counselling

Audio CD

Published April 18, 2023

Reviews

[Terrye · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains a wealth of information that will prove a valuable resource to both the beginning and the experienced therapist.

Synthesising years of work using guided drawing therapy with clients, Cornelia Elbrecht demonstrates the underlying sensorimotor skills within the framework of art therapy needed to assist clients on their journey to recovery. Cornelia provides easy to follow diagrams and explanations of neurological processes harnessed for Bottom-up or Top-down interventions.

I found this book to be filled with accessible information on trauma-informed practice, research into neuroscience and the effects of trauma on the brain and body, and much more. For those interested in adding to their toolkit to work with clients this book is a must have.

Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing: A Sensorimotor Art Therapy Approach to Bilateral Body Mapping will be a valuable addition to the library for therapists, especially those therapists who work with traumatised clients.

[Clare Jerdan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cornelia introduced me to bilateral guided drawing several years ago. As a trauma therapist I use guided drawing as an everyday intervention. It is a resource for healing and a wonderful skill set for self regulation. It is especially powerful for clients with addiction issues. Where the client has a feeling and then bypasses the cognitive interventions to a solution for that feeling, the cycle of addiction. It is a skill set that can be taken into their everyday lives and used at home to help change the feeling state. I like to call it Tai Chi on paper.
Through Cornelia’s extensive research showcased in this new book we now have a more comprehensive understanding of why it works. This interweaving of knowledge from multiple disciplines is ground breaking.

Clare Jerdan
M.A, B.Soc.Sci, Dip.Athr, R.N,
ANZACATA
Artpsychotherapist
Byron Bay
Australia

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great resource

[Whitney Dahlberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5