ABSTRACT
Creativity can be a vital and powerful enabler of healing, learning and development. In this chapter, the author draws on 20 years’ experience of working in various humanitarian settings to describe how groupwork which enables participants to connect to their innate creative instinct can be a powerful, non-pathologising and accessible means of individual and collective healing. The chapter reflects on the role of creativity in healing and recovery, and explores various processes which can be used to access this. A range of approaches are discussed, including working with images, poetry, storytelling, drama, dance and movement. The author shares his observations of how these creative approaches can contribute to adversity-activated development and resiliencies amongst those who have experienced torture and other atrocities.
