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- Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012
Journal of Applied Arts & Health - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012
Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012
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Designing sound for health and wellbeing in emergency care settings
Medical research and interventions can lead to new discoveries in treating cancer, understanding the human genome or the prevalence of diabetes in emergency department patients. However, practice-based art research in medical settings can also test questions, experiment with ideas and contribute to new knowledge about human health and wellbeing. This article will focus on the sound and emergency medicine project, 'Designing Sound for Health and Wellbeing' as a case study to examine how applied art, music and sound research and interdisciplinary collaborations can benefit hospital communities and engender a practice of non-invasive, non-chemical interventions to relieve patient stress and anxiety. As this project demonstrates, sound art and music does not have to be developed, created and presented for exhibitions and performances alone; it can also have a strategic role in clinical interventions and health care provision.
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An arts-based approach to co-facilitation of a theatre programme for teenagers with acquired brain injury
Authors: JULIA GRAY, SABRINA AGNIHOTRI, MICHELLE KEIGHTLEY, ANGELA COLANTONIO, JODY JAMES and STEFAN MORINThis article documents a theatre programme for adolescents with acquired brain injury (ABI) developed as part of a research study, with the intention to improve social skills and community integration post-injury. Attention is brought to the artsbased method of co-facilitation in context of the artistic programme. Challenges of recovering from an ABI are discussed, in addition to how the programme's goals aimed to address these challenges and how the facilitators approached issues during the programme. Using a narrative approach, arts-based methods are explored relative to the programme's development, how the facilitators interacted with each other and how the needs of participants were supported. The adaptive nature of an arts-based method of facilitation, as well as the artistic exercises comprising the programme, were found to suit working with participants with an ABI who each had unique recovery processes due to the complex nature of their injuries.
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Holding eternity in an hour: A practical exploration of the arts in the health care of older people with dementia
Authors: DAVID GRANT, JENNY ELLIOTT and SUE MORISONThis project involved creative artists working with older people with dementia and staff from two Belfast Health and Social Care Trust-supported housing centres in a mixed programme of dance, painting, music and drama that culminated in an open workshop with relatives and friends of the tenants. The study steered away from traditional medical models of art/music/dance therapy where the participant is perceived as a 'patient' in favour of identifying the participant as a 'student' who avails of a lifelong learning experience. A key premise was that access to the arts is a human right, especially in the context of advancing age and cognitive impairment. According to one of the tenants of Mullan Mews, the project served to 'awaken – or reawaken – folk with dementia to the endless vista of possibility already in their lives if they will only look for it'. A phenomenographic analysis of video data generated by the project emphasizes the importance of the individual experiences of participants in the programme. The evidence from these storylines gained strength from the development of a documentary-style film text that has proved successful in capturing and translating the live experience of the project participants into a supportive text that goes beyond the written word.
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How community dance leads to positive outcomes: A self-determination theory perspective
Authors: JENNIE NORFIELD and SANNA NORDIN-BATESLittle is known about how community dance influences well-being. Grounded in selfdetermination theory (SDT), this study examined the relationship between dancers' perceptions of the motivational climate, basic need satisfaction (competence, autonomy and relatedness) and motivation-related variables (intrinsic motivation, enjoyment and perceived effort) in community dance. A total of 84 dancers (mean age=44.28 years, SD=20.04) regularly attending community dance groups in any style, completed a questionnaire addressing the targeted variables. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses supported a model in which dancers' perceptions of a task climate positively predicted autonomy and relatedness satisfaction. In addition, a model in which dancers' intrinsic motivation, enjoyment and perceived effort were predicted by their perceptions of the motivational climate and need satisfaction was partially supported. This study provides preliminary evidence as to the applicability of SDT to community dance and indicates the importance of promoting task-involving climates in order to foster positive experiences from community dance participation.
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Cultural leisure activities and well-being at work: A study among health care professionals
Authors: KATINKA TUISKU, LAURA PULKKI-RÅBACK, KIRSI AHOLA, JARI HAKANEN and MARIANNA VIRTANENThere is growing evidence of the beneficial effects of cultural activities on health and well-being at work. Employees facing job demands and changes at work might benefit from arts when recovering from mental strain, reflecting on their values and finding new perspectives. The aim of this study was to examine the association between the frequency and type of cultural leisure activities and well-being and creativity at work among health care professionals (N=336). We analysed the association of creative leisure activities (art-making or creative expression) and receptive cultural activities (consuming culture) with well-being at work in the following outcomes: creative working mode, personal achievement and work engagement. A higher frequency of cultural leisure activities was associated with well-being at work. Both types of cultural activities were associated with a sense of personal achievement at work, but only creative leisure activities were associated with the creative working mode. In contrast, only receptive cultural activities were associated with work engagement. Sense of coherence, a marker of individual resources for successfully coping with stress, and organizational support of a creative working climate were analysed as covariates. Neither of these explained the associations between cultural activities and well-being at work. Creative hobbies and consuming culture on a weekly basis are both related to well-being at work. In line with earlier studies, the results support cultural activities as a possible empowering factor in occupational well-being among health care professionals.
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A Place for opportunity: The Block, representing the Council Estate in a youth theatre setting
More LessThis article explores issues surrounding the representation of contested place by looking at the links between the Council Estate and social well-being in a specific project. The National Youth Theatre's The Block, was a new writing piece premiered as part of their 'Playing Up II' programme. Playing Up II attempted to offer access to higher education in the performing arts to those not in education, employment or training (NEETS). The article focuses on the play's portrayal of the problematic Council Estate space and uses Bourdieu's 'habitus' to analyse the way in which the performance process mediated the social structures of opportunity available to participants. The article explores the issues of representation, aspiration, opportunity and spatial practice that arose during the course of the project. The work in this article has arisen as part of a larger project that considers the representation of council estates in live performance.
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Applied theatre as an 'alternative substance': Reflections from an applied theatre project with people in recovery from alcohol and drug dependency
By ZOE ZONTOUThis article explores factors by which participation in applied theatre has the potential to have an impact on problem drug and alcohol users by operating as what the author refers to as 'alternative substance'. In particular, the author seeks to examine the possibility of applied theatre operating as an alternative form of 'escape' from their current community (a community of exclusion) and thereby functioning as a motivational force towards their social reintegration. The arguments proposed in this article will be supported by using examples of practice from an applied theatre project that the author conducted in the organization Addiction Dependency Solutions (ADS) based in Oldham, Greater Manchester.
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Theatre for a Change in Malawi: Participatory approaches to Development
By MATTHEW HAHNTheatre for a Change (TfaC) uses innovative strategies to empower vulnerable and marginalized groups through positive behaviour change and advocacy of gender and sexual equality. Adapting their practice from Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre, TfaC's aims to change attitudes towards gender and sexuality in specific communities within Malawi. When TfaC recognized that the Protagonist in their Forum Plays was predominantly female, re-enforcing the stereotype of women within these communities, they adapted Forum Theatre's concept of 'win/loss' to explore the issues of 'equality' where any character can be replaced in order to achieve an equality in the relationship represented on stage. They call this adaptation, Touch Tag Theatre. Touch Tag Theatre is currently used to positively change the behaviour of vulnerable and marginalized groups as well as to advocate for changes in educational and legislative policy decisions to those who hold power and influence in society on a wider level.
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The union of the expressive arts and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy with adolescents presenting with traits of Borderline Personality Disorder in a residential setting
Authors: EMILY LEBOWITZ and CHANDRA REBERThis article documents the journey of expressive arts-based Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) groups with adolescent females struggling with Borderline Personality Disorder at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA from their inception in 2009 through to the present. There has been minimal research done on the efficacy of fusing the expressive arts with DBT; the theoretical model used at the 3East residential treatment programme. This article documents the rationale, structure and evolution of these groups. Furthermore, we discuss indicators of potential benefits from these groups such as decreasing perfectionism, increasing mastery, coping skills, self esteem and self identity, as well as propose changes that could continue to improve the current groups. Specific interventions and client observations are showcased with the purpose of sharing our experiences and expanding the dialogue between clinical psychology and expressive arts. Our work supports a positive outcome for the combination of these two treatments in this setting.
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REVIEWS
Authors: Sanna Nordin-Bates and Susan Jane SimsMOTIVATION TO MOVEMENT CONFERENCE, UNIVERSITY OF BEDFORDSHIRE, BEDFORD, 24–25 JUNE 2011
A PERSONAL ENCOUNTER WITH POETRY THERAPY
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