Pentagon Expo to Feature Art Therapy for ‘Invisible Wounds’

By Terri Moon Cronk

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2014 – Art therapy has evolved in the last several years as treatment to help service members express what they want to “symbolize about themselves” after suffering the invisible wounds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Defense Department art therapist said yesterday.

Those invisible wounds are traumatic brain injuries and psychological health conditions such as post-traumatic stress syndrome, noted Melissa Walker, an art therapist and the healing arts program coordinator at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

“Art therapy gives service members a nonverbal way to express themselves and make those invisible wounds visible,” she said.

Pentagon employees will be able to see some of those expressions this week through the works of art created by service members who went through Walker’s program. Fifteen pieces of art will be on display Nov. 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Warrior Care Month Rehabilitation Expo at Apex 1 and 2 of the Pentagon’s second floor.

A Show of Strength

“Show of Strength” is this year’s theme for the November recognition.

“When I work with service members in art therapy, I see a lot of the resilience they experience, partially through art making, and reflecting and growing from their experiences,” Walker said. “I see a lot of strength in them from what they’ve been through, and in their healing processes, some of them say they’ve become better people than before they were injured.”

In a four-week, intensive outpatient program for service members who are diagnosed with both invisible wounds but haven’t responded to conventional treatment, the National Intrepid Center of Excellence staff evaluates and treats such complex cases, and Walker’s art program is a prescribed therapy.

Walker -- along with a music therapist and professional creative writers -- takes service members through a creative process to allow them to reflect and organize their thoughts to get at issues that are troubling them.

Underlying Thoughts Show Through Art

The art therapy program begins with Walker giving each service member a blank mask to design, using a variety of art supplies that can range from paint and beads to magazine clippings, she said. The results vary widely, as service members express themselves while working in small groups of five people to encourage socialization, she added.

The finished masks depict a broad spectrum of their concerns and hopes -- from losing battle buddies to sustaining injuries, to expressing feelings toward family members, to showing hope for the future, she explained.

Art is Symbolism

“I tell them the masks have some symbolism related to [their] identity and how some of them are probably going through transitional phases, trying to figure out who they’ve become since being injured and who they will become once they go through the healing process,” Walker said.

Later in the four-week program, Walker assigns service members a montage project and tells them to depict something about themselves, such as the evolution of their treatment. Many show their past, present and future, she said.

Walker also offers individual sessions where service members can work on a choice of projects. Some choose to design a box, which might represent “someone who’s trying to find his soul, which he feels he left behind in theater,” she said.

“Some depict the scene of where they were injured based on what they remember, or they might [design] something they’re envisioning at that moment because it’s been haunting them,” she added.

The service members tell Walker her art therapy program is one of the treatments that helped them open up when they couldn’t do so before, Walker said.

“They tell me, ‘I understand so much better what I’m going through now, and why I was so stressed out before I came here,’” she said. “For them, that’s the biggest step: identifying what they have to work on.”