heal | Outside The Lines

Adult coloring book Can art help heal the emotional wounds of adults? Specifically, does color possess the ability to act as a healing agent to the human psyche?

The short answer to both of these questions is yes.

Art therapists and other medical professionals are well aware of the amazing ability art and color have to minister healing to the unseen injuries inflicted by emotional trauma. An increasing number of universities and colleges are designing degree programs that enable students to pursue art therapy as a profession. Art-based therapies are becoming commonplace in hospitals, and are often integrated into treatments for behavioral health patients.

Psychologist Ellen Lacter took art-based therapy into a new and exciting direction when she created a therapeutic coloring book aptly named A Coloring Book of Healing Images for Adult Survivors of Child Abuse.

Coloring Book May Resolve Abuse-Related Issues

A Coloring Book of Healing Images was created to assuage the hurts that result from abuse. Author Ellen Lacter, who has been an art therapist since 1977, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor since 1998, and clinical psychologist since 1986, designed this coloring book with results in mind. Lacter brought nearly 30 years of experience into the creation of this coloring book, packing it with tools that foster self-care and can bring healing and resolution to abuse-related issues.

This very special coloring book consists of 17 chapters. Each chapter details a facet of healing; examples of chapter titles include Acceptance, Self-Love, Hope, Joy and Play, and Healing Abused Parts of Myself. Included in each chapter is a description of a particular aspect of healing, as well as plenty of ready-to-be-colored illustrations.

Illustrators Robin Baird Lewis and Jen Callow helped the author bring the curative coloring book to life by composing its images. “As the reader applies art media to the images, their meaning can be deeply internalized to tap into the survivor’s infinite internal resources and to pave a personal path for healing.”

Color Your Way to Healing

The memories of child abuse have a way of seeping deeply into the subconscious and expressing themselves in ways that negatively alter a person’s life. Individuals who live through child abuse are true survivors. A Coloring Book of Healing Images for Adult Survivors of Child Abuse is a resource designed to help people go from merely surviving to thriving.

Coloring books are no longer just for kids. If you are an adult survivor of child abuse, Ellen Lacter’s healing coloring book could be a steppingstone on your journey toward emotional wholeness.

Read more Segmation blog posts about art and color:

Art Therapy Treats more than the Heart

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Be an Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

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Red means stop and green means go. This has been true for some time and is widely accepted, probably because traffic signals reinforce this behavior on a daily basis. Now these colors are being used to determine if a human wound is healing or not. SMART bandages turn green when oxygen is flowing to wounds and red if oxygen is low.

This is important technology because wounds need sufficient amounts of oxygen to fully heal. However, until now, most bandages actually restrict oxygen flow and hide the healing process, leaving wounds susceptible to unseen complications. With this new “paint-on” translucent bandage, an individual and his or her physician can easily monitor the wound’s healing process.

The creator of the bandage, Conor L. Evans, an assistance professor at Massachusetts General Hospital (at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine) and Harvard Medical School, considers the color changing technology to be a sort of mapping system. For right now, the SMART bandage maps “a wound’s tissue oxygenation concentration.” But this is only part of the bandage’s purpose.

SMART is an acronym for Sensing, Monitoring and Release of Therapeutics. Right now, sensing and monitoring are available thanks to easy-to-follow color changing technology; in the future, the bandage may be capable of “automatically [delivering] drugs at the wound site.”

The transparent liquid bandage displays a quantitative, oxygenation-sensitive colormap that can be easily acquired using a simple camera or smartphone. Image: Li/Wellman Center for Photomedicine

For now, the bandage uses a viscous liquid that includes phosphors. Phosphors are in many glow-in-the-dark products because they “absorb light and then emit it via a process known as phosphorescence,” explains rdmag.com. This liquid is painted on the first wound. In conjunction with a different top coat, it creates an air-tight sealant that protects the wound while monitoring airflow. Then, a camera is used to activate the phosphor and capture a reading of current oxygen levels (i.e. a map of reds and greens) throughout the wound. Any camera can trigger this process—even a smartphone.

There is no telling when or if color changing bandages will be sold over-the-counter. The research for SMART bandages has been driven by an admirable goal: to help wounded soldiers. SMART bandages may soon go into field testing in efforts to “significantly improve the success of surgeries to restore limbs and physical functions.”

On a large scale, the sensing and monitoring bandage may be the start of precise wound healing. On a small scale, it is pretty cool that a translucent bandage may change color, and in effect, help humans heal.

Read more Segmation blog posts about art and color:

Red Artwork is Worth Fortunes

Cutting Edge Art Blog Inspired by Current Events

The Color Red and its Many Meanings

Be an Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

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