Cait Matthews

Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Bauer, Gordon

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

People commonly experience traumatic events that have lasting harmful impressions on the brain and body, yet the mental health care system is structured in a way that does not always easily provide accessible and effective individualized treatments. This study was interested in the relationship between survey participant preferences towards different therapy types and perceptions of experiencing language, art, and the body. Sixty-eight participants in total engaged with the survey; 57 completed up through the therapeutic preferences section; 45 completed the entire survey. The participants were asked if they had ever experienced therapy before, then if they had experienced trauma that they had addressed or would like to address through therapy. After this, they were asked to rank their preference to engage with three different described therapy types: art therapy, somatic experiencing therapy, and psychoanalytic therapy. They were given opportunities to leave open-ended comments, and to specify if they would prefer a fusion of two or all three of the therapy types. Then, they were asked to complete Likert-type scaled questions selected from the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Emotion Regulation Scale for Artistic Creative Activities (ERS-ACA). Ten FFMQ questions related to bodily mindfulness were selected, as well as 10 related to language mindfulness. Nine questions were selected from the ERS-ACA. Questions selected from these surveys were most relevant to the goals of the current study. Most of the participants had engaged with therapy previously (86.76%), as well as had experienced trauma that they had addressed or would like to address in a therapeutic context (79.41%). The hypothesis that respondents would have a variety of therapeutic preferences due to their individualized experiences was supported. No significance was found between therapeutic preferences and responses to experiencing art, language, and the body, but the experiencing art section approached significance. Moving forward, this study hypothesizes that looking at individual experiences with different processing mechanisms may help therapists better understand individual preferences for certain types of therapy. Additionally, a focus on intentionally individualized therapies may allow individuals to be open to therapeutic fusions that are less popularly discussed and more effective for the specifics of personal experiences.

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