Abstract
Art therapy has long been practiced in many countries, especially in the West, as an alternative
means for treating mentally traumatized persons. It is not yet implemented routinely in Thailand. The
present investigators took the opportunity of a catastrophic event that occurred in Uttaradit Province in
May 2006, which caused vast destruction of most of the citizens’ houses and farmland and caused great
mental trauma among the residents. Study samples comprised eight school children aged 7-14 years (five
boys and three girls) whose property and relatives’ lives were lost. For the present study, the psychiatrist
member of the author team selected those patients with symptoms that were not so severe that they
would require conventional psychiatric therapy. There were followed up weekly for 12 weeks to observe
the progress of their illness.
The artists also attended the weekly sessions and provided the children with the supplies necessary
for doing art work and urged them to draw anything they wanted to on the paper provided every week.
Their weekly products were photographed for subsequent interpretation of their mental progress. At the
end of the research session, their mental progress was judged by comparing the results of the psychiatrist’s
opinion about the interpretation of the drawings. It was concluded that the art therapy practice in
this group of children yielded considerable success as evidenced in seven of the eight subjects (87.5%).
The investigators suggest that art therapy is effective for managing chidren suffering from mental trauma
caused by disasters.
