Can an emotional trauma flip a switch in the creative brain? Does profound loss offer a new perspective from which to peer into one’s soul? For LeRoy Flemming, author of the “Timelightenment” series (www.timelightenment.biz/) and volume one of “Soulsplitting,” the answer is a resounding yes! And, there’s psychological research supporting this idea.

In role-playing, veterans who’ve endured trauma resulting in PTSD “were better able to represent the boundary between reality and the role-playing, to immerse themselves in the scene, to enact identifiable characters consistent with their setting, and produce complex and interactive scenes that told a coherent story,” compared to non-PTSD vets, according to researchers Robert Miller and David Johnson. The non-PTSD group created more stereotyped, and unimaginative scenes, despite a higher education level and greater role-playing experience, the two wrote. How does a grieving individual make something good out of a heart-wrenching loss? Flemming offers perspective.

• Don’t force it. One of the last things a grieving person needs is an assignment they don’t want. Grief is a process that entails a host of negative emotions: denial, confusion, anger and more. Prescribing creative therapy to oneself or another before one is ready for it can backfire.

• Let it flow naturally. We are all unique individuals and, though we know in the backs of our minds that we’ll someday face the loss of a loved one, we can’t predict how we’ll handle it. “Grieving and creativity actually share some traits,” Flemming says. “Both are processes, and both prompt individuals to express feelings in their own terms. When creativity can be used in conjunction with the grieving process, the catharsis can be profound.”

• You have many options. When a person is desperate for an outlet, he or she will often gravitate toward what he knows. A onetime aspiring painter, for instance, may return to that familiar and comforting form of self-expression.