on 16/1/04 5:27 pm, Roxana Meechan at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> As an Arts Development Officer, I often need to justify to funders and
> the general public the benefits that Arts activity brings to the overall
> Health of individuals but specially Children & Young People.
>
> Please, could someone within this Drawing Research Network let me know
> what hard facts/evidence (research findings/statistics) there is at the
> beginning of 2004 that proves the benefits of "Drawing" in particular to
> the Health & Development of Children & Young People?
>
> Many thanks for your help!
>
> Roxana
>
> Roxana Meechan
> Arts Development Officer - Sutherland
> The Highland Council
> Education, Culture & Sport
> Highland Council Offices
> Main Street
> Golspie
> Sutherland
> KW10 6RB
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> Tel: (01408) 635211
> Fax: (01408) 633120
>
>
>
>
Dear Roxana
I work as an Art Psychotherapist in acute psychiatry in the NHS, currently
with adolescents and adults with severe communication problems who may be
experiencing their first episode of psychosis, or who have histories of
psychosis. They are people who often are not able to engage in meaningful
verbal communication with others, and for whom imagistic forms precede the
capacity to put experience into thought and understanding.
Acute anxiety states, disturbed behavioural problems, chaotic lifestyles,
etc., may also be in relation to disruptive social circumstances (including
refugees); loss of cultural identity; absent parent(s) and any of the abuses
i.e. physical, sexual and emotional. Where traumatised experience is not
yet transformable into words (and indeed English may not be the first
language), expression is often reached in drawn images (using simple
materials such as coloured felt-tip pens) where, with the help of a trained
art therapist, what has been experienced can be understood, made verbal and
more tolerable. A drawn line can begin to give shape to the unimaginable
storms of e.g traumatised loss or fear.
There is now a substantial - and growing - literature on art therapy, but
for your purposes you may be interested in the results of service user
questionnaires, which repeatedly indicate that art therapy helps the most
vulnerable to understand their life experiences and feelings better, and
that the art materials made available to them through art therapy are
central to this process of communicating and engaging with others where
words on their own are inadequate.
Do get in touch if you would like to know more about the specific results of
the Experience of Art Therapy questionnaire.
With very best wishes
Sheila Grandison-Barendt
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