Date of Award

Spring 10-22-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Expressive Therapies

First Advisor

Mitchell Kossak

Second Advisor

Joe Mageary

Third Advisor

Brooke Hessler

Abstract

Digital Storytelling: A Group Experience with Adult Survivors of Trauma is a phenomenological and art-based inquiry with adults (N = 7) who attended a hybrid, Zoom and in-person five-week digital storytelling workshop in two separate groups. Group One (n = 5) was conducted three months prior to Group Two (n = 2). The research question was: How do self-identified adult survivors of trauma who are in therapy experience a trauma-informed 5-week digital storytelling group workshop? Over the five weeks, participants engaged in orally sharing personal stories, writing personal stories, organizing visuals and sound for their stories, editing individual short videos, and sharing their completed digital stories with their respective groups. The workshop included a balance of group sharing and individual video editing. Data were collected from recordings of each session, researcher observation, art and written participant reflections, a post-workshop discussion, and a post-workshop story about their experience in the workshop. Data were organized into experiential themes: moments of safety, retreat from engagement, somatic response, affective waves, away from isolation, self-empowerment, and a new opening. This study helps support a theory that digital storytelling has potential to be used as an art-based technique with adult survivors of trauma.

Key Words: Digital Storytelling, Adult Survivors of Trauma

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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