Creative Healing Strategies for Victims of Natural Disasters
Cornelia Elbrecht AThR, SEP, ANZACATA, IEATA, IACAET
When the earthquake shook an area the size of Portugal in southeast Turkey and northern Syria, at least 56 thousand people died, 126 000 suffered non-fatal injuries and at least 2.6 million people were displaced. I was asked by the Psychology Department of Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul to speak about trauma-informed strategies to support large groups affected by a natural disaster. An event such as this earthquake is overwhelming for all involved, even the news were overwhelming to watch. And while the world by now has turned elsewhere, the aftershocks for those millions directly affected will last for years, if not a lifetime.
The primary characteristics of a natural disaster are a lack of control over life-threatening events. In many cases it involves the loss of all worldly possessions and dislocation, but crucially also the destruction of the local community and its support networks that provide essential physical, emotional and safety nets. Life is often distilled down to the most basic survival needs, how to secure food, water, shelter, and protection from physical harm. Even though there is a huge amount of trauma, this is not a time for individual therapy. Rather supporting strategies need to address large groups and ensure that individuals collectively emerge out of dissociation and despair.
Natural disasters can bring up a sense of betrayal and broken connections with the divine and with nature. The sense of meaning is often the most affected and needs to be restored. (Levine 2010) (Rothschild 2000) The way that an individual makes sense of what happened can either deepen the trauma or heal it. Questions arise such as: Why me? Why this? Why now? This may include survivors’ guilt, especially when close friends, family members or neighbors perished.
A mythical dimension can be an important resource in revealing the healing answer to these questions. Levine states that when individuals can find spiritual meaning in the events, inner resources become available that allow those affected to deal with adversity in a proactive way rather than shutting down and giving up. For example, those displaced living in shelters may discover that helping each other brings human warmth and connection. The psychology students of Ibn Haldun University described how women in the refugee camps have formed sowing and cooking circles, where they are actively involved in creating blankets, clothes and food while sharing stories. The sense of connection and meaning can be restored through helping each other.
The psychology students also described how the children had been gathered in improvised classrooms and were enjoying soccer tournaments. However, their biggest question was how to help the men? They were the ones who sat with vacant stares, isolated and unable to engage in any of the offerings of helpers. They were the ones who had shut down and given up. Levine (Levine 2010) and others suggest that in such cases the group restauration of faith is of utter importance. When all hope is lost there is no motivation to continue living. The Ibn Haldun psychology students began gathering ideas, how the celebration of Ramadan could become a source of organized worship for large groups, especially of men. Prayer involves known rituals and group connection, but also rhythmic movement and chanting. I emphasized to the students that rhythm and breath are important aspects of the restauration process; they encourage individuals’ nervous systems to emerge out of dissociated freeze states.
Many traditional peoples know this and have practiced faith-based rituals for thousands of years, also in the event of crisis. Dance, song, music and rhythm are able to offer solace and healing in the often-unpredictable events of natural disasters and war. Somatic Experiencing has taught me that the arts can play a crucial role in this restauration of meaning. After the tsunami in Fukushima, Japan, when millions were displaced, support teams brought Kodo Taiko Drummers into the refugee camps. This ancient tradition uses huge drums and requires a supremely physical workout of the musicians. The sound connects to the heart rhythm, and the musicians played, until everybody was standing and moving.
Archbishop Tutu of Cape Town and Johannesburg won the Nobel Prize in 1984 for his ground-breaking approach to heal the trauma of the apartheid in South Africa. He would encourage one individual at a time to share the experienced horrors, and then the congregation in church would stand up and sing Hallelujah. These spiritual songs involved voice and movement, a strong engagement of the body to counterbalance dissociation and isolation. Each time the individual trauma would be embedded and held in the greater context of community and spiritual devotion. This meaning making process fostered forgiveness and reconnected the participants with their rhythm of life.
When the 2011 earthquake destroyed Christchurch and Deborah Green’s hometown Canterbury in New Zealand, she developed an art therapy project for all the schools in her area. (Green 2017) The children would use cardboard boxes, scrap materials, sticky tape and paint to create houses, streets, and towns. Each classroom engaged in the restauration of their community. A psychology student of mine, who worked in the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon successfully adapted this exercise to the children he worked with. Being able to do something, being actively engaged in rebuilding and repairing, increased the resilience in all these children. Even if the houses were just decorated shoeboxes, they opened their minds for healing and the process of rebuilding their community.
In all these cases Pendulation (Levine 2010) and the strengthening of a healing vortex is important to counterbalance the destructive force of the trauma vortex. (Elbrecht 2018) What restores individuals and groups is rhythmic movement through dance, drumming, chanting, drawing, sculpting and the connection to community. What has happened cannot be undone; but we can restore hope, faith and resilience through the arts and faith-based exercises.
Works Cited
Elbrecht, Cornelia. 2018. Healing trauma with guided drawing; a sensorimotor art therapy approach to bilateral body mapping. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Green, Deborah. 2017/7. "Quake destruction/arts creation; arts therapy and the canterbury earthquakes." ANZJAT.
Levine, Peter. 2010. In an unspoken voice; how the body releases trauma and restores goodness. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Rothschild, Babette. 2000. The body remembers. New York: Norton and Company.
AThR, SEP, ANZACATA, IEATA, IACAET
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