How Comics and EMDR Made Me the Hero of My Story

Authors

Heidi Breuer Ph.D., California State University - San MarcosFollow

Abstract

Evidence for the therapeutic value of the arts, including comics/sequential art, has been growing recently, and the therapeutic value of EMDR has also been well-documented. This video-comic puts them together by providing anecdotal evidence of the transformative power of EMDR and art therapy used together as treatment for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. When I began EMDR as a treatment for acute symptoms from childhood trauma, I perceived intense images that I felt compelled to draw. After each EMDR session, I sketched, and the stories poured out in the form of comics. Though I was initially reluctant to share my story or admit publicly to being the victim of trauma, comics allowed me to overcome the social and familial stigma of speaking out against my mother. Like EMDR, sequential narrative art allowed me to renegotiate the traumatic memories from a safe space, gave me control over the representation of the story, and, most importantly, allowed me to determine the meaning of the traumatic event. Graphic storytelling gave me the courage to share the work I’ve been doing in therapy to process the traumatic experiences and move forward in my own life. Telling my own story via the comics medium demonstrates the power of sequential art to communicate trauma and healing experiences to others.

Recommended Citation

Breuer, Heidi Ph.D. (2023) "How Comics and EMDR Made Me the Hero of My Story," Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/survive_thrive/vol8/iss1/2