Abstract
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) combined with art therapy is a promising modification of treatment that offers both verbal and non-verbal approaches to healing from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This chapter reviews an art therapy group utilizing ACT to treat veterans of all eras diagnosed with PTSD, most from the Vietnam era. A variety of group approaches are used in the treatment for PTSD: supportive, psychodynamic, and cognitive-behavioral. The experience of trauma is largely non-verbal, felt in one's body or experienced through witnessing. The psychological wounds of PTSD, which lead to emotional and cognitive disruption, stem from pre-verbal and somatic experiences. The ACT core concept of contact with the present moment, a mindfulness concept, allows veterans to remain grounded and conceptualize PTSD symptoms as primarily thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and memories of past events. Cognitive defusion was introduced using the metaphor of Monsters on a Bus, adapted from Hayes, Stroshal, and Wilson.
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