Who is this Trauma Picture Book for?
The picture book was originally intended for joint use within affected families:
- For children from war-affected countries who experienced overwhelming fear before or during their escape to a safe country and who continue to suffer from the consequences even after achieving a certain level of external safety.
- For parents who want to better understand their child in this situation and help them.
It is also being used by staff and volunteer helpers who support refugee children in kindergartens, schools, associations, and shelters, which makes me very happy. Usage instructions for them can be found below. The picture book has also been requested and positively commented on multiple times by pediatricians, alternative practitioners, psychotherapists, and trauma therapists.
Here you can find the presentation slides of my lecture on working with Trauma Picture Books. Part 1 deals with trauma-sensitive pedagogy, and Part 2 with the use of Trauma Picture Books in daycares, schools, and shelters.
Can the Trauma Picture Book be purchased?
The Trauma Picture Book is a volunteer project and my donation to people who have experienced violence and displacement. The picture books should be available free of charge to refugee families and their volunteer supporters. It is best if the affected children or families can keep and use their own copy individually. Therefore, the picture books can be viewed or printed for free on the internet.
If you, as a therapist, teacher, or counselor, print the picture books and use them professionally as working materials, please send me a message so we can find a fair balance: a submission of your publications, a donation, or something similar. I am always happy to hear about your experiences with the picture books.
I can also provide free color prints to refugee families and their volunteer supporters, as various organizations, especially the GEW, often help with printing. If you are interested, please send me a self-addressed and stamped return envelope. Please inquire in advance at susanne.stein@hamburg.de to see if copies are available in your desired language. Thanks to the GEW, we have already been able to send packages with picture books to Iraq, Greece, and Turkey.
How can the Trauma Picture Book help?
Children can better understand themselves. They experience relief because there are (psycho)logical explanations for their ongoing fears or bodily symptoms. Any feelings of shame and guilt are reduced. Their confidence is strengthened.
Parents and helpers can better understand the children. They learn what can ease the situation for the children and what behavior can cause additional problems for them. This also helps because parents and helpers often feel powerless.
The door to trauma therapy is shown and opened slightly. A relatively unknown treatment option is thus brought within reach.
Does the Trauma Picture Book replace therapy?
Unfortunately, that is not possible. The Trauma Picture Book is a small trauma aid. Metaphorically speaking, it is “a crutch that helps one get through the hard times with a leg injury until the wound slowly heals or can be treated by a specialist.” The Trauma Picture Book cannot eliminate the suffering but can hopefully alleviate it and strengthen confidence. I followed a Chinese proverb: “Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
In professional terms: The picture book can contribute to stabilization, resource activation, and psychoeducation. It thus hopefully helps with the important relief of parents and children.
How can the Trauma Picture Book be used effectively?
As a supporter, you can offer the picture book to the parents or children or look at it together with them. For the affected, it is important that you adopt this attitude: You accompany the children or adults in a friendly, modest, and empathetic manner while reading, notice their feelings, and respond to their questions. You do not know better; you do not diagnose. You provide an explanatory offer. You point out possible help. If it helps, it’s good. If the affected reject it, it is their good and important right.
To return to the metaphor of the crutch: You know that you are only offering a “crutch” and are not “the doctor.”
What should I do if the child encounters distressing memories while looking at the pictures or drawing?
I have spoken with trauma therapists about this important question, which is often asked at events, and have received the following tips for “lay helpers” – all of us who do not have trauma therapy training. I am particularly and very grateful to Annette Junge-Schepermann, a psychologist and child trauma therapist from Hamburg, for this:
“It is crucial in dealing with potentially traumatized children to maintain a consistent resource orientation and avoid interventions that could lead to flooding with unprocessed traumatic memory fragments. It is very helpful and usually completely sufficient if you do something with the child that allows them to experience their strengths or create new positive experiences. Just sensing that you encourage and want to help them is beneficial. Thus, you can do a lot of helpful things for the affected children without having to touch upon distressing memories. Processing traumatic experiences should be left to professionals.
If a child talks about terrible experiences or draws terrible memories, it is advisable to follow these tips:
Acknowledge in your words that the experience must have been terrible without delving into possibly traumatic details: “That must have been very, very bad for you.” It is important to unconditionally recognize the victim status of the affected person and their family and signal that you have understood the extent of the “terrible” while consistently focusing on existing strengths and resources and any positive outcomes in the horror experienced. Comfort the child if needed. If you follow these guidelines and otherwise act without fear from the heart, you will surely do everything right.
Do not investigate further. Refrain from seeking information, even if you are very interested. If the child wants to talk about traumatic details, let them draw the situation or recreate it with dolls or similar items while narrating. Encourage the child to tell the situation in the third person, as if from an “eagle’s perspective”: “Then Ahmed ran away…” instead of “Then I ran away.” These measures are meant to help the child distance themselves from the experience to avoid being overwhelmed by unprocessed feelings or body sensations from the trauma situation.
As soon as possible, calmly and clearly return to the resource orientation: “What helped you survive the terrible situation?” And if the child cannot name anything, ask: “When do you feel good today? Who or what do you like?” Or: “What shall we play, do, paint now… to make you feel better?” It is helpful if you already know the child a bit and know what they like. Or you find it out together in the situation. If the child has drawn or recreated the traumatic situation, you can invite them to bring the experienced situation to a good end in the picture or game, i.e., invite the child to imagine and draw or recreate what should have happened for the situation to have a good outcome. This usually has an immediately healing and calming effect and corresponds to simple interventions that child trauma therapists also use to help with processing.
If you are still worried about the child after such experiences, do not hesitate to talk to the parents and, if necessary, therapeutic professionals about it.”
Why doesn’t the Trauma Picture Book mention adult trauma?
The situations of refugee families are often more complicated and dramatic than depicted in the trauma picture book. Perhaps the parents are traumatized themselves, maybe family members have died, or there have been repeated frightening experiences. Unfortunately, there are far too many degrees of the suffering presented here. The affected people surely need additional help.
The Trauma Picture Book takes “only” the perspective of a child who had to flee with their parents and now lives here. It consciously uses the means of reducing to something manageable and essential: The trauma picture book is there to help war-traumatized children directly or indirectly through understanding, practical help, encouragement, and hints about therapy possibilities. It cannot and should not do more.
Why did I, as an educator and personnel/organizational developer, create a Trauma Picture Book?
Here’s how it happened: In the fall of 2013, my husband and I just wanted to make a small donation to a refugee shelter here in Hamburg, but then much more happened. We met fascinating people with very difficult fates. It quickly became clear that donations are good but not enough. Conversations, visits, and joint activities were more important. Over time, heartfelt and intense relationships developed, some of which continue to this day. Larger donation campaigns followed, and the idea for this Trauma Picture Book was born. Why? During our visits, we saw up close how gifted children suffer openly or secretly and loving parents do not know how to help them. At the same time, we experienced their strength and zest for life. This led me to use my educational and psychological knowledge and my joy of creativity for this picture book. Many people from my environment actively supported me, including a diploma psychologist, a doctor of psychosomatic medicine and psychoanalysis, and two trauma therapists from the Children for Tomorrow foundation at the UKE. More information can be found in the imprint of the Trauma Picture Book on pages 45 and 4.