Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul

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Over the past half century, art therapy has expanded from a tool to address the unmet needs of individuals facing adversity and trauma to much wider use in hospitals, schools, and community organizations to promote health and well-being through artistic self-expression. Presents a wide range of activities aimed at reviving art's traditional healing function and illuminates some progressive views in the rapidly expanding field of art therapy, including the practice of imagination as a force for transformation; the healing effects of group work; and total expression, which combines arts such as movement and storytelling. Whether she's profiling social justice and Indigenous rights issues or fellow artists and people with disabilities, sylvi's work explores the intersection of pain and beauty and gives back to the communities that have supported her along the way. It will also strike a chord with anyone who has been through something in their lives which has hurt, as grief and loss is covered as well as methods to celebrate life.

There is a lot of mixed media within this book, not just textiles, which adds to the appeal, as often `I find as an artist I don’t get inspired simply by one art genre.The emotional outlet art offers can help dial down the physical sensations, sometimes by simply turning my mind away from them. Talking about how survivors respond to art therapy, Mike says, “ Most survivors are open to express their feelings through art after a trusting relationship has been formed with their therapist. Visualize your inner light with educator Jackie Armstrong and uncover new ways of relating to Dorothea Tanning’s First Peril.

During a nine-month battle with depression, Sergei Van Hardeveld leaned on pottery and singing to get through. In this important collection of essays, both scholastic and less formal, McNiff brings together the key ideas that have animated his pioneering work in expressive arts therapy for over 30 years. It also takes in many real life experiences, detailing how certain making methods helped them to process a difficult time emotionally. If we can liberate the creative process in our lives, it will always find the way to whatever needs attention and transformation.I’m reminded of Tanning saying ‘keep your eye on your inner world’ as I try every day to move in this world with more presence and full awareness, even at times when I feel unsteady and overwhelmed by it all. Lemarquis explains that, in a process helped by mirror neurons, activated when observing art, we can get the feeling that we are participating in art’s creation, or putting ourselves in the artist’s shoes.