ABSTRACT
Visualizing and symbolizing through an art therapy and other non-verbal interventions can help the client to imagine a better world and a better place. With the help of symbols and work in art therapy, emotionally compromised parents may be able to share trauma and abandonment issues through their art, helping themselves and their children to heal. According to Tinnin and Gantt, when the artist successfully completes the graphic narrative as a complete story with beginning, middle, and end, and avows it as personal history, then any intrusive symptoms that were due to this trauma should cease completely. Art therapists working in military settings can certainly provide therapeutic interventions along with other therapists in the DOD and VA system. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study demonstrates that the more traumas one experiences early in life, the more emotional and physical consequences there are, drawing a link between physical illness and early trauma.
