Newspaper Page Text
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
“I experienced
anger and
depression. I had
risky eating and
drinking habits.”
- BRIGETTE MCCOY
mote healing, optimum development
and socialization.”
The nonprofit has worked with more
than 400,000 trauma victims around
the world — people who, left untreated,
could resort to harming themselves or
others, Anderson said.
Led by trained clinicians, members
gather in “safe places” to support each
other and to heal
while collaborating in
creative arts.
Anderson, who
lives in Buckhead,
followed a circuitous
path before creating
ArtReach in 1999 and
becoming its CEO.
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Rewind to the late 1970s: Anderson
coped with divorce by enrolling in the
Atlanta College of Art. A course in art
therapy showed her how making and
using an image can release feelings sup
pressed by emotional and physical trau
ma.
“That’s when I knew I had intuitive
ly sought a form of self-help,” she said.
Anderson became an agent for strug
gling and starving artists, learning even
more about their pain and appreciating
how it fed their creativity.
ArtReach was born when Anderson
felt compelled to help victims of the war
in Bosnia. Soon, it expanded to Jordan,
Lebanon and then, after Hurricane Ka
trina, to the United States.
“But I always kept a comfortable dis
tance from my own childhood trauma
until a retired major general told me the
VA [Veterans Administration] would
have its hands full with war veterans
from Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said.
In 2009, ArtReach’s Project Ameri
ca began to address post-traumatic stress
disorder in returning servicemen and
servicewomen, and in military families.
“Finally getting in touch with my
own personal story gave me an authentic
connection to the work,” Anderson said.
BriGette McCoy is a single mom of
two daughters who served in the U.S.
Army from 1987 through 1991.
While based in Germany, she was
raped off-post, she said. She later suf
fered brain and back injuries in a fall
while on patrol. The VA told her she was
fine after her discharge, she said, though
she didn’t feel fine.
“I experienced anger and depression.
I had risky eating and drinking habits,”
she said.
It wasn’t until after she joined Art-
Reach that she was able to address her
trauma. McCoy was buoyed by her very
first session, in the spring of 2012.
“We drew, we painted, we wrote a
play. It was very profound,” she beamed.
Nowadays, if she feels triggered, she
goes back to that time and remembers
the freedom she felt with the others in
her group. “I find my center again and I
paint on my own now. I do still struggle
with anxiety and eating, but I am more
confident in my life,” she said.
McCoy is training to facilitate future
ArtReach sessions. For her, it’s a way of
giving back and paying forward. “Ar
tReach is like family. I just feel better
there,” she said.
Karen McCarty is a Buckhead-based
family therapist and ArtReach trainer
who first worked with McCoy. “She is a
force who has survived challenges I can
only imagine,” McCarty said. “She, like
the other vets, helps us learn where we
need to change our training. She teaches
us how to do a better job.”
Susan Anderson’s
hope is for brain re
search to actually
prove how a mod
el like ArtReach can
make a difference.
“Just imagine
how much more the
arts would be embraced in treatment,”
she said. “I know that art changes lives.”
To learn more, visit http:llartrea.ch-
foundation. org/
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