Allison h's Senior Project Blog

Project Title: “You Drew Stars Around My Scars”: The Expression of Self Harm in Art
BASIS Advisor: Avery Bott
Internship Location: Independent Project
Onsite Mentor: Katie Brazaitis



Project Abstract

According to the American Psychological Association, roughly 17% of teenagers have engaged in self-harm at least once. Stigmatization and a lack of awareness for mental health issues lead to a reluctance in many adolescents to seek the help they need or share their feelings. Self-harm allows for a release of these experiences and is often viewed as a method of outward expression of intense thoughts and pain. Because art is also an outlet for internal emotions, art therapy is used to reduce self-harm. I am currently working with Dr. Katherine Brazaitis, a psychiatrist located in Tucson who specializes in treating anxiety, PTSD, and depression. She values integrating artistic elements in her therapy practice. Through my research and her expertise, I hope to better understand how the emotions leading into self-harm can be translated into a piece of art and how art can be used to raise awareness on this issue.

    My Posts:

  • Paint the Road to BASIS Mesa & See My Senior Project Presentation Saturday, 5/17

    Hello everyone and welcome to my last official blog post! I want to start off by thanking everyone for reading my blog posts each week. My purpose for this project was to educate and raise awareness, so to all my readers, I hope you were able to learn something new about self-harm or art therapy... Read More

  • My Love and Struggle with Emotions and Art

    Hello readers and happy late Easter! This week was especially interesting because I was able to see my research come to life! ASU’s School of Counseling and Counseling Psychology hosted a pop-up art exhibit to showcase works done by students in an Expressive Therapies for Counseling class. Some of the works were examples of art... Read More

  • Letting Go of the Brush

    Welcome back everyone to another weekly blog post!  This week I finished up an article about the current treatments for self-harm in youth. It mainly focused on three different methods: dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and mentalization-based therapy (MBT). DBT mostly targets emotion regulation and developing coping skills for challenging situations. CBT... Read More

  • AP Definitions to Self-harm Connections

    Hey everyone! Welcome back! Although challenging, I decided to push through and stick with neuroscience for one more week. This time, I read an article about the neuroscience of self-harm so I could get an overview of both sides of my project! This article still had a lot of terms I was unfamiliar with but... Read More

  • Pirouettes of the Mind

    Welcome everyone to the last blog post of March! This week was quite a challenge as I tried tackling the neuroscience side of art therapy. The article I read had a lot of vocabulary I was not familiar with so it took a while to get through. I was constantly taking detours to Google definitions... Read More

  • The Not-So-Formula of Art Therapy

    Hello readers! It's officially time for my weekly update! I started off my week by watching a documentary called Art Therapy: The Movie. It explores the different ways art therapy can be beneficial, from treating people with addictions in New York City to helping individuals with trauma following the Tohoku Earthquake in Japan. One example... Read More

  • Following the Crayon Brick Road

    Hello everyone and welcome to my fifth blog post! This week, I shifted from looking at media to looking at colors. I read an article that describes a study where they had an adolescent girl who self-harmed do ten different art therapy activities to see their effects. One of the most helpful activities was coloring... Read More

  • The Shadows Behind the Screen

    Welcome back readers to another blog post! Many people, myself included, use social media. It’s pretty common for me to be found scrolling through Instagram Reels on a daily basis. This week I decided to focus my research on how media can impact adolescents who self-harm.  I first read an article finding the correlation between... Read More

  • Some Lightning and a Doll

    Welcome everyone to my third blog post! This week I talked with my mentor about how the various functions connect to the factors leading into self-harm. For example, emotions associated with childhood maltreatment, like pain, confusion, and loneliness can be a lot to handle for an individual. This may lead to the “channeling overwhelming emotions”... Read More

  • And the Roads Begin to Multiply

    Hello there and welcome back to my blog!  This first week was a week full of decision-making and shifting. Even something as simple as choosing the size for my canvas took a lot of consideration. Through a discussion with my mentor, I was guided to two paths I could take to specify my research for... Read More

  • “Scars to Your Beautiful”

    Hey everyone! Welcome to my blog! This is where the path of my exploration in self-harm and art therapy will be illustrated, through both words and paint.  Let’s start with the beginning of any art piece: inspiration. In 2024, American figure skater Gracie Gold released her memoir and described how sharing her story and having... Read More