Date of Submission
Spring 2021
Academic Program
Psychology; Psychology
Project Advisor 1
Frank Scalzo
Abstract/Artist's Statement
Though art therapies and cognitive therapies are both well-established as treatments for PTSD, no studies thus far have tried to consolidate the pros of each into a single therapy. Through modifications to CPT procedures to include expressive fictional written accounts rather than the standard autobiographical account of traumatic events, I believe that the expressive writing paradigm can be utilised to create a new therapeutic procedure for PTSD. Due to lesser emotional intensity and the freedom allowed by creative endeavours, I believe that this procedure would not only yield positive outcomes comparable to CPT, but also have lower drop-out rates than CPT and exposure therapies. The present paper proposes an experimental procedure to test the effectiveness of the modified CPT procedures and compare them to the current standard CPT. Drop-out rates of groups will also be closely monitored and compared between each other.
Open Access Agreement
Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Matos, Nathanael J., "Art as Therapy: Using Fictional Written Accounts in the Treatment of PTSD" (2021). Senior Projects Spring 2021. 335.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2021/335
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
Included in
Art Therapy Commons, Other Mental and Social Health Commons, Psychiatric and Mental Health Commons, Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Commons