1. The Healing Power of
Mandalas
Finding Meaning from Trauma

2. Trauma and the Brain Verbal Expression Emotional Regulation
Brain lateralization: Brain scans show that when discussing trauma, significant parts of the left hemisphere (Broca’s Area) shut down and the right hemisphere becomes activated.
Difficulty expressing thoughts/memories: The prefontal lobe (responsible for language) is adversely affected by trauma, which gets in the way of its linguistic function.
Difficulty regulating emotion: The amygdala (responsible for emotional regulation) is in such overdrive that in often enlarges.
brain goes through this chemical ‘rewiring’ to survive the trauma
impact memory storage and disrupt communication between the left and right hemispheres, an essential process in the cognitive and affective mastery of traumatic material
Verbal Expression
The pre-fontal lobe (responsible for language) is adversely affected by trauma, which gets in the way of its linguistic function.
Emotional Regulation
The amygdala (responsible for emotional regulation) is in such overdrive that in often enlarges.
Brain Lateralization
When discussing trauma, significant parts of the left hemisphere (Broca’s Area) shut down and the right hemisphere becomes activated.

3. Healing from Trauma Involves…
Interrupting the natural cycle of avoidance.
Discharging pent-up “fight-or-flight” energy.
Making connections between feelings and symptoms.
Learning how to regulate strong emotions.
Processing and integrating trauma-related memories and feelings.
Understanding of self and the world in light of the trauma.
Restoring relationships, connections, boundaries, and trust.
Processing and integrating trauma-related memories and feelings
Reconnecting implicit (sensory) and explicit (declarative) memories of trauma.
Discharging pent-up “fight-or-flight” energy (calming the nervous system)
Learning how to regulate strong emotions
Restoring a sense of safety and boundaries
calming the nervous system
Interrupting the natural cycle of avoidance
making connections between feelings and symptoms
making sense of what happened and how it affected them
understanding themselves and the world again in light of the trauma
Restoring relationships and connections.

4. Finding Meaning from Trauma
If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.
~ Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p. 88
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~ Khalil Gibran
”You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.” ~ Henri-Frederic Amiel
"Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it."
~ Viktor Frankl quoting Spinoza's Ethics in Man's Search for Meaning, p. 95
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning…” ~ Viktor Frankle, Man’s Search for Meaning

5. Finding Meaning from Trauma
Suffering is part of the human experience
We must discover why we are suffering
Suffering can be transformed and healed
Once you have identified the cause of your suffering, you must find an appropriate path

6. Mandala Drawing
In therapy, the mandala is any drawing made within the framework of a circle

7. Mandalas – The Sacred Circle
Tibetan Mandala
Rose Window
Native American Medicine Wheel
Labyrinth Walking Meditation
Mayan Calendar
Cultural Uses of the Mandala
Tibetan Mandalas: Part of a monk’s training and journey toward enlightenment
Rose Window: Stained glass windows with intricate biblical symbols
Native American Medicine Wheel: used to demonstrate the periodicity and cyclicality of nature, change, life and lifecycles, interdependence, relationships and the union of Earth and the Universe. 
Labyrinth Walking Meditation: Walking among the turnings, one loses track of direction and of the outside world, and thus quiets the mind.
Hindu Yantra: Represents the various divine powers at work in the universe.
Celtic Knots: We cannot see a beginning or and end, and therefore we are reminded of the timeless nature of our spirit, and the infinite cycles of birth and rebirth in both physical and ethereal realms.
Mayan Calendar:
Cultures from around the world have used circle drawings to express universal aspects of the human experience.
At the root of all mandalas is the human longing to understand oneself, experience harmony, and grasp one’s place in the universe

8. Natural Mandalas

9. Mandalas in Therapy Carl Jung Joan Kellogg
The mandala represents the center of personality from which the “Self” develops.
Joan Kellogg
Our unconscious draws us toward certain symbols, colors, shapes, etc. which reflect our mental state or tasks related to our psyche’s current stage of development.
Carl Jung: Credited for bringing a Western version of the mandala to psychotherapy.
Saw the mandala as….
The psychic nucleus, the center of personality from which the “Self” develops.
Reflection of the process of individuation.
A space for the unconscious to surface through archetypal symbols.
Show an inborn urge to grow toward wholeness or full expression of one’s potential
The “self” governs the psychic growth process
Mandalas compensate for disorder by centering the individual…a natural attempt at self-healing
Joan Kellogg’s Great Round of the Mandala:
The psyche develops through twelve stages encompassing different developmental tasks.
Symbols surface when an individual experiences unconscious conflict related to corresponding stage.
Schema representing the cyclical pattern of personal growth
Mandalas are associated with the natural cycles of human experience
Jung recognized that the urge to make mandalas emerges during moments of intense personal growth. Their appearance indicates a profound re-balancing process is underway in the psyche. The result of the process is a more complex and better integrated personality. "The mandala serves a conservative purpose—namely, to restore a previously existing order. But it also serves the creative purpose of giving expression and form to something that does not yet exist, something new and unique…

10. Mandalas in Practice
Creating and interpreting mandalas to develop insight.
Drawing or coloring mandalas as a meditation tool.
Creating mandalas as a form of self-expression and healing

11. Creating a Mandala… There are no mistakes!
Let yourself go....the object of mandala drawing is not to make a picture of anything in particular, but rather to let the drawing unfold without conscious direction.
See handout of Mandala Exercise
Allow the colors to pick you
There are no mistakes!

12. Mandala Drawing: The Process…
Take a moment to reflect upon the following questions
Summarize what you have reflected upon thus far.
What themes are resonating from your mandala?
How is your mandala representative of who you are, and your current situation in life?
Imagine yourself inside your mandala
How does it feel to be inside?
Where is it the most comfortable?
What do the symbols look like from this perspective?
List the colors you used
What associations do you have for each color, if any (words, feelings, images, memories)?
List the shapes used in your mandala
What associations do you have for each color, if any (words, feelings, images, memories)?
Give your mandala a title based on your reflections

13. What feelings does the client attach to…
Colors
Black/White
Shapes
Numbers
Thickness and Thinness of Lines
Strokes
Border of Circle
Location of Symbols/Shapes
Background

14. Examples of Client-drawn mandalas

15. The Healing Power of Mandalas
Circles are centering and provide a protective boundary
Boundary of the circle provides a safe container for memories
Reconnecting implicit (sensory) and explicit (declarative) memories of trauma.
Access trauma memories through right-brain symbolic communication
Practice relaxation and self-soothing
Bridge sensory memories and narrative
Imaginal exposure: trauma is experienced through the art and therefore outside of oneself (externalized)
The client unknowingly sets the pace of healing
Suggestive mandalas: Cognitive reprocessing of the trauma providing alternative more empowering outcomes
Provide a wealth of information: colors, shapes, spacing, and time devoted to the project
Not biased by culture, class, gender, etc.
Creating mandalas helps stabilize, integrate, and re-order inner life
Mandalas don't rely on the purity of language but on the abstract (a more right-brained activity)
Trauma makes is difficult to verbalize states of distress, through mandalas they can identify the unknown triggers to that distressed state and thus decrease heightened levels of anxiety.
Reconnecting implicit (sensory) and explicit (declarative) memories of trauma.
Mandalas allow us to access and release the trauma-related emotions without speaking or reliving them.
Access trauma memories through right-brain symbolic communication
Give voice to the unconscious
Practice relaxation and self-soothing
Bridge sensory memories and narrative
Imaginal exposure: trauma is experienced through the art and therefore outside of oneself (externalized)
Suggestive mandalas: Cognitive reprocessing of the trauma providing alternative more empowering outcomes
illustrative coding of traumatic events in drawings allows clients to be self-interpretation.
Centering effect of the circle
Boundary of the circle provides a safe container for memories
Provide the individual with the opportunity to process their trauma.
Drawing “safe space” images
By-bass the cognitive processes that can prevent self-expression.
Centering, bringing order to psychic confusion.

16. References
Curry, N. A., & Kasser, T. (2005). Can coloring mandalas reduce anxiety? Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 22, DeLue, C.H. (1999). Physiological effects of creating mandalas. In C. Malchiodi (ed.), Medical art therapy with children (pp.33 49). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Ltd. Elkis-Abuhoff, D., Gaydos, M., Goldblatt, R., Chen, M., & Rose, S. (2009). Mandala drawing as an assessment tool for women with breast cancer. The Arts in Psychotherapy, (36), Fincher, S.F. (1991). Creating mandalas for insight, healing, and self-expression. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc. Henderson, P., Mascro, N., Rosen, D., & Skillern, T. (2007). The healing nature of mandalas: Empirical study of active imagination. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 1, Jung, C. (1959). Mandala Symbolism: Translated by R.F.C. Hull. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kellogg, J. (1991). Color therapy from the perspective of the great round of the mandala. The Journal of Religion and Psychical Research, 15(3), Consciousness Korn, M. (2007). Trauma related disorders: Conversations with the experts - An interview with Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD. Medscape Mental Health. Retrieved on 4/16/12 from Normand, M. (2008). How to meditate when you can’t sit still. Retrieved on 2/5/12 from Polt, N. (2005). Coloring mandalas with adults in a short-term inpatient psychiatric hospital. M.A. dissertation. Ursuline College. Retrieved January 18, 2008, from Proquest Digital Dissertation database. Schrade, M.A., Tronsky, L. & Kaiser, D. (2011). Physiological effects of mandala making in adults with intellectual disability. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 38, Slegelis, M. (1987). A Study of Jung's Mandala and its Relationship to Art Psychotherapy. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 14,

17. Mandalas – The Sacred Circle
Animated series of emerging circles
Archetypal Circle
At the root of all mandalas is the human longing to understand oneself, experience harmony, and grasp one’s place in the universe
Cultures from around the world have used circle drawings to express universal aspects of the human experience.