2025 Theses Doctoral

Process and Processing Navigating the Experience of Trauma: An Arts-Based Autoethnography

Ehrman, Aimée

At SkyWe have moments in our lives that sometimes abruptly, traumatically, and without our consent arrest us in our paths.

At Water
These events can immediately place us in a space that is uncomfortable, uncertain, and unknown.

At Walking
Traumatic experiences are often challenging to navigate, challenging to discuss, and challenging to survive.

At Train
But they can compel us to slow down and create space to engage our senses, inviting us to realize ourselves more fully and become present. I have encountered one of these moments and I am making my way through.

In this research I claim and create a space in response to my experience navigating the effects of trauma during my time as a doctoral student in art education. I utilize arts-based, new media autoethnography to explore and share what my experience navigating trauma is like, how this experience is evolving, the role that shaping and telling stories plays within this process, and the role that my ceramics art practice is playing within this experience. In telling my story, I find resonance with philosophies of becoming which inspire me to embrace my story’s emergence as it unfolds. I have gathered and generated audiovisual fragments that felt resonant to my lived experience and used these fragments to create vignettes that share significant aspects of my experience.

These vignettes, as well as the thinking surrounding them, are housed within a web-based space. This web-based space is not only a place to share my journey, but also one where I invite the engager into my experience. Within the doing of this research, I have come to understand that I am processing my trauma, I am enabling my healing, I am finding support and connection. Research involving trauma requires support in highly individualized and nuanced ways. (Dissertation) research needs alternative spaces that move beyond traditional academic structures. New Media and arts-based autoethnography can be foregrounded as a trauma-informed approach for conducting and sharing research, and for sharing stories of trauma.

The site link presented in this PDF is my dissertation archived at the time of the completion of my degree. To view my continually evolving site, please go directly to www.processandprocessing.com.