Researching The Arts Therapies

* Are you about to write a dissertation for an MA in an arts therapy? * Is your workplace pressuring you to do research on your practice? * Do you fancy trying your hand at a bit of research without any pressure from anyone? * Are you bewitched, bothered and bewildered? A mystique about research usually comes from reading a) writers who launch into philosophical dialectics about research and avoid the basics; b) poorly written research papers full of undecipherable formulae; and c) smug, unfriendly research texts. This book begins at the beginning. Ansdell and Pavlicevic hold your hand and give you plenty of hints and tips while you prepare your funding proposal or research project. They help you think about your title, structure your research questions and aims, and prepare to collect, organize and analyze your research data. Moreover, you're not alone! Franz and Suzie have their own projects which you're invited to follow with opportunities to learn about the nitty-gritty of tables, pie-charts, data transcription, data presentation - and supervisors who toss off clever, useless bits of advice. `Beginning Research in the Arts Therapies' puts the zap into arts therapies research, making it fun and serious, exasperating and utterly absorbing. Miss this book and you'll deprive yourself of a sympathetic ear, firm advice and a sensible and imaginative combustion of theory, debate and determination. `Beginning Research in the Arts Therapies' is recommended to all arts therapies practitioners: students, researchers, and those clinicians who simply want to `keep up' with research literature without `doing it for themselves'.

Intercultural Arts Therapies Research: Issues and methodologies is the first overarching study on intercultural practice and research models in the arts therapies. It provides a new departure from traditional arts therapies education and research in that it focuses on research studies only. Written by international experts in the field, the book offers a selection of diverse research undertaken within four arts therapies modalities: art, dance, drama and music. Drawing on methodologies such as ethnography, phenomenology and case study research, chapters focus on cultural identity, the transposition of cultural practices to a different context, and the implications of different languages for arts therapies and disability culture. With reference to primary research, it aims to help practitioners and students to develop further research, by making the mechanics of the research process explicit and transparent. Intercultural Arts Therapies Research will appeal to arts therapists, psychological therapy practitioners, postgraduate students and other health and social care professionals. It will also be of interest to students, artists, teachers, social workers and those working for international aid agencies.

This book outlines the potential uses of music, art, drama and dance movement therapies in educational settings, and the contribution they have to make to the emotional and social development of children and adolescents. Drawing on international evidence, the book outlines a wide range of applications of arts therapies across a range of settings.

Art therapy and all of the other creative arts therapies have promoted themselves as ways of expressing what cannot be conveyed in conventional language. Why is it that creative arts therapists fail to apply this line of thinking to research? In this exciting and innovative book, Shaun McNiff, one of the field's pioneering educators and authors, breaks new ground in defining and inspiring art-based research. He illustrates how practitioner-researchers can become involved in art-based inquiries during their educational studies and throughout their careers, and shows how new types of research can be created that resonate with the artistic process. Clearly and cogently expressed, the theoretical arguments are illustrated by numerous case examples, and the final part of the book provides a wealth of ideas and thought provoking questions for research. This challenging book will prove invaluable to creative art therapy educators, students, and clinicians who wish to approach artistic inquiry as a way of conducting research. It will also find a receptive audience within the larger research community where there is a rising commitment to expanding the theory and practice of research. Integrating artistic and scientific procedures in many novel ways, this book offers fresh and productive visions of what research can be.

Arts Therapies and The Mental Health of Children and Young People presents innovative research, theory and practice in the arts therapies. The different social, cultural and political contexts and developmental age groups illustrate and underscore the richness and diversity of contemporary arts therapies' creative response to the needs of children and young people in contrasting locations. The book represents an acknowledgement of the high rates of mental disorders in children and young people and addresses this subject. In presenting an array of responses from arts therapists working with children and young people in different contexts and countries, the book highlights the particular features of distinct art forms, yet also points to the potential dialogue between disciplines. Chapters show how the expressive potential and appeal of the arts, when facilitated within the therapeutic relationship, are crucial in fostering hope in the future and the capacity for trust in self and others. This book will be of great interest to arts therapists as well as academics and postgraduate students in the fields of arts therapies, social work, psychotherapy, health psychology, and education.

Art Therapy Research is a clear and intuitive guide for educators, students, and practitioners on the procedures for conducting art therapy research. Presented using a balanced view of paradigms that reflect the pluralism of art therapy research, this exciting new resource offers clarity while maintaining the complexity of research approaches and considering the various epistemologies and their associated methods. This text brings research to life through the inclusion of sample experientials in every chapter and student worksheets, as well as a full chapter on report writing that includes a completed sample report. This comprehensive guide is essential reading for educators looking to further the application of learning outcomes such as teamwork, communication, and critical thinking in their practice.

An Introduction to Art Therapy Research is a pragmatic text that introduces readers to the basics of research design in quantitative and qualitative methodology written in the language of art therapy, with particular attention to the field’s unique aspects, current thinking, and exemplars from published art therapy research studies. This combination of a broad, standard approach to research design plus art therapy’s particular perspective and major contributions to the subject make the text suitable for courses in introductory research, survey of art therapy history and literature, art therapy assessment, and ethics. The book includes strategies for evaluating research reports and writing for peer-reviewed publication, features that make the text of special value to students, practitioners, doctoral candidates, and academics writing for publication. An online instructor's manual with student resources is available and offers material to enhance the pedagogical features of the text.

Attachment Informed Art Therapy is an innovative art therapy approach that provides the therapist with the theories and applications to work with all populations with troubled or abusive relationships. This book will provide art therapists and mental health professionals with a solid visible and empirically-grounded conceptual framework. It will be useful to professionals who use attachment theory in clinical work, and will make an excellent single source for therapists working with populations of all ages from birth to death. John Bowlby's findings and other leading research in the attachment field, form the foundation of the theories behind Lucille Proulx, MA, ATR, RCAT the Attachment Informed Art Therapy interventions.