Journal of Applied Arts & Health - Volume 4, Issue 3, 2014

The arts are often neglected in the context of modern medicine. However, they offer opportunities for greater patient understanding, improved patient comfort and treatment results, and enhanced clinical skills, personal enrichment, and resilience in medical practitioners. The application of the arts to medicine can be categorized into five main categories: medical education, prescriptive options, improved patient experience, public health and care for medical personnel.

This article summarizes the current state of the field of applied arts and health in Israel. It begins by reviewing the literature assessing the state of applied arts and health in other countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia). After establishing a research methodology, it provides a short history of the development of applied arts and health in Israel. The main section of the article assesses practice in Israel in the five content areas of applied arts and health: patient care, community well-being, caring for care-givers, education and healing environments. Patient care dominates the field of applied arts and health in Israel. The author hypothesizes that this is due to the extraordinarily robust role that the creative-arts therapies play in Israel’s healthcare system. The article concludes with some suggestions for how research in the field may be advanced in the future.

‘Humanities in Medicine’ programmes at major teaching hospitals and clinics offer a range of experiences for both patients and medical students. This report from the field discusses the history of the programme, the legacy of the institutional commitment to the interplay of arts and health and specifics of programmes designed for patient and student constituencies. References to existing studies locate the programmes in the context of the national field of activity.

In this article, an expressive arts therapist at the Jerusalem French Hospital St. Louis explores how exposure to the arts has positive side effects on families, staff, and other patients and how an oasis of shared, rich, cross-cultural life exists in a place of illness and death. Beneficial healthcare outcomes are achieved in the hospital when cultural richness interacts with the use of the arts.

What should be the role of a musician working with traumatized people in war-affected areas? How can the musician support the healing process of the participants in music workshops? The author, who ran such workshops in the Middle East and the Great Lakes Area in Africa, concludes that a passive role can sometimes lead to an active attitude from participants, which empowers their self-healing capacities.

This article explores how and where the arts and imagination fit into a time of crisis. It explores the centrality of time and timing in this context and draws on some case material and pertinent theory.

This article will describe teaching philosophies, pedagogical approaches and experiences in community outreach programmes developed by the author and other colleagues within the context of the Lesley University Extension Program in Israel. Studies of conflicts with both children and adults throughout Israel suggest a society permeated by the psychological stress and trauma associated with dislocation, conflict and violence. This article intends to contribute to an understanding of applied arts-based approaches to working with similarities and differences between the self and others in order to build a more tolerant and peaceful culture in Israel. Artists, educators, community workers, mental health counsellors and health professionals need additional tools with which to deal with these psychological issues in order to enable the process of building a more tolerant society and promoting peace. Examples will be drawn from conferences, events and other community outreach activities.

A life-story study of the bi-national village Ne-vé Shalom/Waa-hat i-sal-aam was conducted for the purpose of writing a book about the community. In the published book (Lieblich 2012), the individual interviews are written as separate narratives about each of the participants. However, the post-publication reactions of the village members indicated that reading each other’s life stories promoted better understanding and empathy, who struggle with deep tensions, splits and disagreements. Reading the ‘other’s’ life story in private may be a preliminary step before a face-to-face dialogue is possible. This proposition is discussed in the framework of different models of conflict resolution and in reference to the author’s own experience vis-à-vis the community. Thus, the reported study adds to our understanding of the wide healing potential of life stories.

In support of the mission of the Journal of Applied Arts & Health, which ‘defines “health” broadly to include physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, occupational, social and community health’, this article expands upon a keynote talk for the 2013 The Arch of Arts in Health International Conference in Haifa, addressing the degree to which the established creative-arts therapy professions have focused more on mental health rather than embrace this more holistic vision of arts healing. There is an essential conflict between the creative-arts therapy position that therapeutic practice is conducted exclusively within a professional relationship by trained therapists and how arts and health engages artists, volunteers and professionals from various medical fields.

Our research concentrates on two key topics in medical humanities: arts and narrative for deepening compassion in medical education, and using abstract paintings to improve reflective competence through faculty development workshops. The authors designed and delivered workshops to enhance physicians’ competencies in each of these areas. The first workshop used figurative paintings and narrative both to enhance understanding of the sufferer as well as to deepen compassion among medical students and practicing physicians. The second used abstract paintings to develop reflective competence among medical teachers. Participants in the first workshop reported a change in their attitudes towards suffering and compassion for the sufferer. Assessment of the second workshop showed that the combined use of arts and narratives was perceived as contributing to the reflective exercise.

Hospice and palliative care workers can reduce the potential for burnout by nurturing self-competence and self-awareness in order to manage challenging and painful emotions that arise from the nature of working with dying individuals and bereaved families. An art therapy supervision programme for end-of-life care workers in Hong Kong utilized mandala-making as a tool for cultivating self-awareness. A total of 60 mandalas were collected, rated according to J. Kellogg’s The Archetypal Stages of the Great Round of Mandalas and compared to burnout scores as assessed by the Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey. The findings demonstrate associations between mandala stages and burnout and offer implications for mandala-making as an indicator of burnout and coping strategies.