Adapting creative therapy: Activities with children and adolescents

Abstract

Creative therapy positively affects ones behavior, cognition, thinking and mood. In creative therapy, children realize that they are being accepted non-judgmentally. They also learn to attract others attention to their strengths. All the tools used in creative therapy are mainly developed by the users of English language and appropriate for foreign culture. In our culture creative therapy tools have not yet been adapted. The main objective of this research is to adapt creative therapy activities for Bangladesh context to be used with children and adolescents based on Creative Therapy: Activities with children and adolescents (Hobday, A. &Ollier, K. 1998). Creative therapy based activities were selected for intervention for children and adolescents. Total procedure was divided into 2 phases. In phase 1, intervention activities were translated into Bangla and a first trial was conducted with children aged 4 to 15 years. In phase 2, effectiveness of creative therapy was testified thoroughly on 100 children, aged between 7 to 15 yrs. At first, in phase 1, the researcher selected 15 activities and took necessary steps for translating them into Bangla. A panel of experts consisted of 5 members considered 12 activities appropriate for the target population. The panel compared words, phrases in English and Bangla and made some modifications. The selected activities were explained to 17 conveniently selected children. Ambiguity regarding words, sentences were modified and changed. Then in phase 2, 100 children were assessed using 3 sub scales (anxiety, anger & depression) of Beck Youth Inventory. Among them 55 were selected for intervention on the basis of their high score in the subscales. Parents of 45 children gave consent for applying intervention. Finally 30 children received all 9 session of the intervention. During the 9 sessions intervention 15 discontinued. Among them 10 showed high level of anxiety. Another 10 of them had high level of anger and rest 10 of them showed high level of depression. These children were divided into 3 categories. Each category received 5 activities dedicated for either anxiety or anger or depression. The researcher herself administered the intervention activities to each child individually. Thus, the researcher herself conducted a total of 270 session’s altogether. Finally the levels of anxiety, anger and depression were measured again after intervention using Beck Youth Inventory sub scale. Result showed that the creative therapy based activity intervention administered on the children and adolescents significantly decreased the levels of anxiety, anger and depression. Therefore the findings supports the effectiveness of using creative therapy based intervention to treat children and adolescents suffering from emotional and psychological issues. Therefore, Psychologists working with children and adolescents can use these activities in their mental health services.