Kids, Art and Trauma

Wasn't sure where to post this….:)


I read Julian's review of Pan's Labyrinth and started thinking about stories and myth and trauma. He mentioned the main character of the film going into the “underworld” of her own psyche. It is fascinating because Clarissa Estes, also a Jungian analyst, talks a lot about the characters in myths and fairytales as representations of the individual psyche. Julian's review reminded me of what she said about the attempt of the wounded psyche to access the protective force, the internal father-the one who combats the “dark man” or internal predator. She mentions this motif played out in many fairytales and uses “Bluebeard” as an example. (The young heroine of the story has undeveloped instincts, as is represented by her mother, who “sacrifices” her to the predator, Bluebeard. The girl outwits Bluebeard, but must eventually call on her brothers, her internal protective forces, to kill him.) Estes also mentions several fairytales in which young heroines must journey into the inner world to find an estranged father who is often a king.

I have not yet seen Pan's Labyrinth, simply because right now I get triggered by torture scenes (no matter how much I understand the filmmaker's intent, obviously). But maybe I'll give it a shot.

This all made me begin to wonder what a conscious integration of Shadow elements would look like in “real life” for kids, especially kids who have already developed a very rich inner world of symbols and archetypes. I'm not an art therapist, though I did teach art in Montessori schools for a few years, and a lot of SE therapy for kids involves renegotiation that resembles traditional play therapy. I can really only guess what a practical, accessible implementation of this Shadow work might look like. (I just ordered Kalsched's book, by the way.)

It's endlessly interesting to me how the psyche will come through to provide what is missing in “real life.” I remember in my own childhood, my psyche developing a vivid world that existed without my conscious participation. It lived just behind this one, and was accessible via a tube. I could slide backwards through the tube in my own head any time, find my characters, and record what they were doing. It seemed essential to my own survival that they continued to exist despite me and that they stay constant, predictable and familiar. They were solid and non-negotiable, whereas everything in the outer world was tenuous and wishy-washy. I could even cope with the evils that appeared in the inner world, because the “good” characters were so good that they knew what to do better than I did.

Before I read Campbell and Estes, I had no idea that fairytales are representations of the processes of the individual psyche. I just wondered why some of the stories I had come up with as a preschooler had a central arc that followed the hero-journey, something I had never heard of. These stories simply created themselves, and made me feel better. Yet I wonder how it would have gone if I had understood that what I was trying to create was a working understanding of my relationship to the actual world, not simply an escape that felt safe. It is a tricky thing now to be so resourced in some areas and kind of terrified in others. Now, I find that trying to understand my defenses, which are often hard to identify, constitutes a serious spiritual practice all on its own. So many of them seem to rise like swamp creatures out of this vague blackness I don't understand. There really is nothing scarier than rising up out of hell wearing your battle fatigues and looking around and seeing that you don't need them, at least not the same ones, but you have no idea how to tame what's in there. It is loyal to you, it has sworn allegiance to you, and it's almost like telling a faithful attack dog that his services are no longer needed. The same energies need to be sublimated into something more useful, but through a gentle process of integration. As I reflect on these weird creatures that have peppered the inner landscape for so long, I can certainly see how someone would think they'd gone nuts. I've often thought I'm nuts.

I remember being amazed at how incredible the urge to communicate is in children. Kids who are traumatized and trying to be heard can often do so in art, at the same time sequestering the feelings they can cleanly express through art off from their every-day selves, seeing them as shameful and not to be experienced in the arena of other people. These kids have good chances at becoming adults who have access to an extraordinarily rich realm of symbols and archetypes, but have never been taught how to incorporate them into their waking lives. And how would they, if this bridge is never provided-if the outside world is where a child is “functional,” gets good grades, and gets along with others-and the inside world is the only place with room for these struggling images to surface? The inside world will squeeze off the outside as a consequence, the person becomes split, and the work of healing the divide as an adult becomes much harder. Giving children the simple understanding from the get-go that their unconscious is a spiritual breeding ground for their budding relationship to the world seems to be the only answer.

Julian mentioned that a big part of a leap into mature 21^st century spirituality involves a working, accessible understanding of the unconscious. It may be a tricky thing for adults who have not yet done so to turn around and embrace their Shadow; they would need resources first, tools that would keep them from becoming overwhelmed when dealing with their own pain (especially repressed pain.) They would have to understand how to work somatically with themselves, as well as acquire a cognitive framework to slowly, gently replace whichever one was in place and framing their understanding in an unhealthy way. But what if some of these resources were given to kids? I'm even thinking of kinds of play-therapy in classrooms and, in the very sunny future, integral therapists at most schools (as well as an integrally-informed educational system, for that matter.) A watchful adult eye that can bear witness to the trauma a child is trying to express can have a powerful impact on a child, and be the first catalyst toward integration (even if the child does not necessarily get the help they need right away.)

Even kids that aren't traumatized are constantly trying to speak, to renegotiate, to access their trauma with symbols, in art, in their play. Kids haven't yet divided “spiritual” from “practical.” I think it would be totally possible to help them see their own inner lives as something fun and interesting (which they already do, for the most part, even when they have stuffed most of their emotions into the Shadow. I have noticed that these repressed emotions and energies still hold a dark intrigue for many of them. I remember one of my students, a traumatized, artistically gifted seven-year-old boy, telling me, “I like my nightmares.” When I asked him why, he said, “‘Cause there's stuff in there and it can do stuff I can't do.”) Elementary school is a good age to give them some tools to help them understand their own personal mythologies, laying the groundwork for Shadow work later on. Wouldn't it then be seen as an adventure to delve into this area, if the child has already been taught the normalcy and naturalness of these kinds of inner journeyings? I'm reminded of another of Clarissa Estes' fairytales called “Sealskin, Soulskin” in which a woman, who is human above water, periodically becomes a seal and slips into the ocean to go “home,” understanding the need to explore these depths for “conscious reclamation.”

I have to add this, just because I saw what often happens to kids who are so good at communicating artistically that they may have little incentive in later life to learn to what to do with people (and I fear this fate for the little boy I mentioned earlier.) I would love to see an essential part of teacher-training being an understanding that it's the game and canvas of the psyche to make art (without pathologizing the child). Children often very astutely tell the story of trying to heal a fragmented psyche in order to be able to function in the world and experience life fully. As adults, art often tells the same story, though sometimes the person has managed neither. This is not simply “what happens to artists” because of their uncommon sensitivity and genius; it's the outcry of a psyche that always wanted to be mended, that had access to a world of images and archetypes, and was never given tools to incorporate this knowledge and attunement to the unconscious into everyday life.

I don't believe it detracts from art's mystery to understand what the unconscious is trying to say, to bring an element of critical thinking into things, especially when it comes to kids. Kids understanding their own unconscious motivations would not dull the presence of art; it would allow for the art of an integrated human being, who can speak in the realm of the unconscious as well as to other people, whose emotional expression would not be relegated to purely speaking in symbols, leaving a socially frightened person behind. I think it's hard to find a myth that's not about trying to heal this split-the splintered human trying to integrate all aspects of the psyche.

Anyway, I'd love to hear from other teachers or child therapists! Thanks Julian for seeing the importance of work like Campbell's and Kalsched's, and thinking out loud about how it might best be brought to kids and people today.