Perspectives
This section presents opinion on aspects of arts and health practice from a range of perspectives including health service users, artists, healthcare professionals and researchers.
Culture and the arts in mental health innovation: Young people want and need more than ‘traditional’ ‘treatments’
Dr. Katherine Taylor, a clinical psychologist, advocates for arts-led interventions within child and adolescent mental health as an empowering, safe and cost-effective approach in fostering positive and sustainable change in a young person’s recovery journey.
16 June, 2019
Social Prescribing: A Collaborative Approach to Health and Wellbeing
People experiencing loneliness and social isolation often seek out their GP for a medical solution to the deep sense of loss and disconnection they feel. Cecily Maher discusses the growing role of Social Prescribing within healthcare provision, which connects individuals to non-medical sources of support within their local community.
1 March, 2019
Aesthetics and Design in Hospital Interiors
Well-designed hospitals lead to improved healing environments; I write from first-hand experience! Six years ago I spent many weeks in and out of hospital having treatment after surgery for cancer and, coincidentally, concurrent treatment for an autoimmune disease.
1 September, 2018
END NOTES
Novelist and short story writer Meaghan Delahunt reflects on her work at the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow. She highlights the importance of creative writing in palliative care and how it's never too late for any of us to explore our full potential.
1 June, 2018
Spectacular Body
Professor Anna Furse, theatre maker and practising academic, reflects on the personal circumstances that have led to a series of projects interrogating the ‘medical gaze’ and how the body, particularly the woman’s body, becomes spectacular through this gaze.
1 March, 2018
The Arts: my instrument for living with depression
After many years of living with depression, Carol Tobin was introduced to Arts + Minds, a HSE arts and mental health programme based in Cork. Here she talks about her recovery journey and the impact that participating in the arts has had on her life.
1 September, 2017
Lines of Escape
Visual artists Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly discuss the inspiration behind their artwork Run River Run for the new 75 bed ward at University Hospital Galway and how the initial challenges of a collaborative approach to creating public artworks led to rewarding avenues of exploration.
1 June, 2017
Whose Move? Body Politics and Health Equality: Positioning Arts Practice in Contested Territories
When engaging with marginalized experiences and excluded constituents, artists sometimes find themselves outside the current framework of arts and health practice.
1 March, 2017
The Value of Collaboration: Reflections on the implementation of the Per Cent for Art Scheme in a community nursing unit
As the Director of Nursing of a HSE community nursing unit for older people, I believe that residents should be able to live their lives to the full with opportunities for personal development and enrichment through connections to the wider community.
1 December, 2016
Opening the Box
Poet Paula Meehan reflects on a time of healing in her life when the excitement and mystery of art transcended the daily process of craft.
4 October, 2016
In Writing: finding a way through illness
Writer Lia Mills tells us how the notebooks she kept as a cancer patient helped her retain a sense of self during her treatment and led to a positive shift in her relationship with her artform.
1 September, 2016
A quiet megaphone for your knowledge: an artist’s approach to person-centred arts participation in healthcare
Addressing the imagined participants of an Arts and Health workshop, Marielle MacLeman draws from her experiences of working as an artist in palliative and chronic healthcare settings to reflect upon the values that underpin her responsive approach to person-centred arts participation.
1 June, 2016
