Discovering Chronic Sorrow: My Personal Journey with Art Therapy and Metaphor

This capstone explores the relationship between chronic sorrow and art therapy. Chronic sorrow is a type of living grief and non-death loss that affects parents of disabled children, among others. Grief theory is presented in relationship to the most useful way to approach chronic sorrow. The capstone presents 17 art therapy invitations that integrate metaphor theory, positive art therapy and the companioning model of grief support that have been developed for working with chronic sorrow. The focus is on accepting, normalizing, and building resiliency and hope through personal art therapy explorations.