Power-From-Within: Somatic Art Therapy With an LGBTQIA+ Teenager

Abstract

Abstract The integration of somatic approaches in art therapy can counter the trauma of microaggressions. By adopting a power-from-within stance, art therapists can facilitate sessions for clients to affirm their LGBTQIA+ identities while resisting the impact of discrimination. This article, co-written by an art therapist and client, provides lived experience examples of somatic art therapy: Somatic Experiencing® integrated with body tracing, and sensorimotor art therapy (the Clay Field®). The authors concur that somatically integrated art therapy has helped replace automized behavioral patterns based on fear with behavioral choices that emerged from a place of safety. Implications for therapeutic alliance and power dynamics within art therapy sessions are explored as tenets of body-based self-reflection.