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.
Artists, Political Education and the Care of Self in Social Practice
Before I went to art college I was a nurse and nurses, like artists, are trained to look.
1 September, 2014
Culture and arts in hospitals – a patient’s perspective
Katie Verling draws upon her own experience as an acutely ill patient to advocate for the receptive arts as a means of addressing the anxiety, boredom, isolation and sensory deprivation of patients.
1 June, 2014
Music in common: Probing the divergent mind-sets underpinning Music Therapy and Music in Healthcare
As a trained music therapist and a professional performing musician who works in healthcare settings, I am often asked ‘What is music therapy?’ and ‘What is the difference between music therapy and music in healthcare?’
1 March, 2014
A Disruptive Influence – introducing the role of an arts and health co-ordinator
The conjoining of those two spheres - arts and health - is not something that I would have heard of when I first started out as an art student.
1 December, 2013
The Weapons of Life: A case for arts participation as a creative response to mental health problems
In an era of austerity and scarce resources, a participatory arts programme as an integral part of the mental health services would appear to be an unaffordable luxury.
1 September, 2013
A Marriage of Apparent Opposites: The Arts in Medical Education
Medicine has always vacillated between the two separate lovers, art and science.
1 June, 2013
The place of loss in arts and health
The theme of loss surfaces through art again and again, even when it is not named as such.
1 March, 2013
Blood and Ink
Ben Murnane is a writer who lives in Wicklow and suffers from a rare genetic disorder, Fanconi anaemia. He describes how creativity helped him cope with his disease, and discusses a new film project involving teenagers with chronic illnesses.
1 December, 2012
It’s not you, it’s me
Kildare Arts Officer, Lucina Russell, argues for the place of arts and health practice as an integral part of a local authority arts programme, and describes how her own recent experience of healthcare has deepened her appreciation for this field of work.
1 September, 2012
Where does arts and health research belong in academic terms?
This podcast features extracts from a round table discussion by a group of postgraduate researchers around the academic positioning of arts and health research. It was hosted by the Waterford Healing Arts Trust in the School of Nursing Trinity College in 2011 and chaired by Catherine McCabe PhD.
1 June, 2012
Shall we discuss this outside? A look at artistic and medical responses to ethical quandaries
Artist and General Practitioner, Dr Ciara MacMahon, discusses how the fields of art and medicine differ in their responses to ethical issues and cites two contemporary artworks that raise challenging ethical questions of relevance to medics.
1 March, 2012
Can good arts and health practice be taught?
Hilary Moss argues for the need for accredited and on-the-job training for artists working in healthcare settings to ensure best arts and heath practice and place the work of artists in this field on an equal footing with health professionals.
1 December, 2011
