UC Santa Cruz

This thesis thoroughly explores the potential of using artistic practice as a research-basedapproach to facilitate positive experiences and engage with traumatic memories. It is firmly grounded in the five stages of grief outlined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in “On Death and Dying”: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The project constructs a non-linear narrative around the traumatic memory of losing a loved one to violence. The central research question investigates how imaginal exposure techniques using aesthetics in mixed-media design can aid individuals with traumatic memories of grief. The research draws on Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy techniques, focusing on in vivo and imaginal exposure methods. These techniques involve confronting traumatic memories to reduce associated fears and anxieties through staged encounters and narrative rescripting experiments. Imaginal exposure primarily extracts memories through verbal interactions, which inspired the creation of a mind map that encapsulated these memories’ mental, physical, and virtual environments. By utilizing an autoethnographic lens, the research meticulously maps these emotions and translates them into a mixed-media art framework, reflecting the abstract, fragmented, and overlapping nature of mental imagery. This process aims to build on extracting a cathartic and transformative healing journey through art. The findings highlight limitations in this method related to language, memory complexity, and the elusive nature of memory formation and their temporal perceptions. The PaR autoethnographic approach suggests that PE therapies can benefit from evolving with new technologies and frameworks taught to people undergoing treatment. This adaptation to existing therapies could enhance the discovery, design process, and narrative articulation, offering individuals a means of expressing and communicating their contained recollections of personal experiences.