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- Volume 1, Issue 3, 2010
Journal of Applied Arts & Health - Volume 1, Issue 3, 2010
Volume 1, Issue 3, 2010
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Border crossings: Arts and health work in a university
By Nick RoweThis article describes and analyses a project developed at York St John University that offers courses to mental health service users taught by students and their tutors. A model is suggested that provides a means through which people who have used mental health services can access higher education (HE) experience that is both flexible and supportive. The project is a collaboration between the university and local mental health service providers. It is an innovation in line with current UK agendas with regard to widening participation and lifelong learning in the HE sector, and to social inclusion in the mental health field. It offers valuable ways for full-time students to develop the attitudes and insights needed to work with people who use mental health services, and it inevitably challenges the cultural attitudes that surround mental illness.
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Objects in transition: The puppet and the autistic child
More LessAlthough claims for the efficacy of puppetry in therapeutic contexts lack extensive academic research, some published evidence does exist. A phenomenological and embodied approach is used here beginning with the writer's own experience as a mother to theorize on the puppet's role as a surrogate communicator and facilitator with children who lack communication skills. Instead of foregrounding language difficulties (as is often the case in writings on autism), this article focuses on the physical reality of a puppet. The writer explores notions of embodiment where neurological patterns are established through physical interaction with the world, and suggests ways in which this patterning may be interrupted or disturbed, and how puppets, as safe and to some extent controllable physical objects, may act therapeutically to re-establish some of these patterns. It is further suggested that puppets may work in similar ways to Winnicott's transitional objects in babyhood, operating in a transitional space. Winnicott claims that in a psychologically healthy adult, the comfort of infantile transitional objects and phenomena is transferred to religion, art and creativity activities that provide a bridge between the inner world that we totally control and the external world, which we do not. Such activities are linked to a creative space of mind and are psychologically necessary. Puppets operate in this space. Overall, stress is laid on the importance of the material reality of the puppet and its objectness to help explain its particular efficacy.
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A descriptive analysis of a pilot drama project in a forensic psychiatric setting
Authors: Hilda Ho and Karen RichardThis article describes an innovative drama project that took place in a forensic psychiatric unit in Perth, Scotland. The project aimed to engage mentally disordered patients in a meaningful and creative activity. We sought to measure any individual changes in behaviour, self-confidence and self-awareness using questionnaires given to the participating patients and nursing staff. Patients attended weekly drama sessions and devised a performance using their own ideas and improvisations. Six patients participated in the full drama project. They reported that they had enjoyed the project, and that the performance was well received by the audience. Patient and nursing feedback reported improvements in behaviour, interaction with others, self-confidence, self-awareness of feelings and ability to control negative feelings. Most patients hoped to become involved in another similar project. Participation in a creative activity such as drama in this group of participants has found a promising initial outcome that merits further work.
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Theatre in education: More than just a health message
More LessThe author of this article worked for fifteen years as a Theatre in Education (TIE) actor and, after moving into Further and then Higher Education, continues to work with young people to create educational projects touring all education sectors. Most of the themes for these TIE programmes have encompassed historical and social themes, and some have addressed health issues directly. It is a sad reflection upon either society or the education system (or probably both) that the demand for such social health projects continues to increase.
In September 2009, The University of Northampton hosted for the second time an international conference about the interaction of arts and health; testament to the acceptance of the fact that the arts can have a transformational effect on the health of individuals and society. Arts-related therapies are increasingly a part of the menu from which we may seek to attain emotional or social good health. This article accepts that the arts can be transformational in promoting good health and, specifically, in forming positive attitudes towards health issues. What follows identifies the nature of Theatre in Education, considers how these approaches have been used in Theatre in Health Education (THE) to promote health, and whether the best use is now being made of TIE techniques. It questions the effectiveness and validity of THE programmes that seek only to portray dire situations without allowing the space, through participation and reflection, for audiences to relate their own lives to those being set before them.
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Prison, music and the rehabilitation revolution: The case of Good Vibrations
More LessIn a time of structural upheaval in the prison system, this article draws attention to the positive and ongoing contribution of arts projects to the debate surrounding effective and transformative prison education. The focus here is on Good Vibrations, a music project involving the Javanese gamelan ensemble that has been active with considerable success in male and female prisons, young offenders' institutions and secure hospitals in England and Scotland since 2003. This article takes an ethnographic approach and reviews the particular impact of this project from several perspectives, including prisoners, prison administrators and teachers, placing the project in the larger context of the role of the arts and education in dealing with the social problem of reoffending.
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Narrative jewellery: The journey
By Jo PondThis article focuses on a design process of artistic enquiry into a condition of mental health. Explored through narrative jewellery, this enquiry employs symbolic representation to convey tacitly the emotional focuses of the sufferers of body dysmorphic disorder. By generating a stimulating aesthetic and inherently visible narrative, we are able to consider the function of jewellery and its potential to entice an enquiring mind to create an awareness and understanding of a mental health condition.
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A report from an arts and health consultation about research and evaluation
More LessIn 2008, a consultation was conducted in the East Midlands in the United Kingdom amongst people working in the area of Arts & Health. The focus of the consultation was on how Arts & Health workers conduct, report and disseminate research and evaluation. In addition to workers, participants of Arts & Health projects also contributed to the consultation process. The process included commissioning eight Arts & Health groups in the region to contribute to the consultation by arranging workshops with their staff and participants to elicit their views. In these days of health commissioners demanding evidence for the effectiveness of interventions, questions such as How do we produce evidence? What research methods are appropriate? were asked of participants. This article reports the findings from the consultation. There is much energy for evaluation and research and interest in becoming more equipped to conduct this aspect of the work. There is an opportunity for regional and local research to contribute to the development of Arts & Health theory. It is thought that evaluation and research should employ mixed methods but reflect the philosophy and ethos of the organizations.
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The Artsbridge group
More LessThis article traces a programme set up in the summer of 2008 with Israeli and Palestinian teenagers who volunteered to participate in the Artsbridge summer camp. One of the main purposes of this camp was to enable the students to spend three weeks together in the United States to foster a sense of understanding for the lived experience of the other. Descriptions of the expressive therapies meetings, which had been conducted along this period, are presented in this article. Using psychodramatic and other expressive techniques, the group's members faced intra and interpersonal conflicts and dealt with themes such as trust, courage and forgiveness. The healing powers of these expressive methods enabled alternative ways to explore and process historical controversies and well-rooted negative emotions.
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Reviews
Authors: Alison Jenkins and Theo StickleyArts Activities for Children and Young People in Need Helping Children to Develop Mindfulness, Spiritual Awareness and Self Esteem, Diana Coholic (2010) London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers UK, 193pp. ISBN: 978-1-84905-001-2, Paperback, RRP 19.99
Arts Development in Community Health: A Social Tonic, Mike White (2009) Oxon: Radcliffe Publishing Ltd. UK, 252pp. ISBN-13: 978-1846191404, Paperback, RRP 24.99
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