Author: Vivien Speiser, Di Zhang

This conversation began when Professor Vivien Speiser and Dr Phillip Speiser traveled to Beijing in April 2024 to initiate the start of the Inspirees Training Program in the first expressive arts therapy training program to be offered in China. Di Zhang (Didi) is one of the first students in this program and this article has grown out of their on-going relationship and communication.. Read more

Author: Olena Vosnesenska et. al

Mitigating the consequences of the collective trauma of war is a challenge for Ukrainian society. This article is the result of the work that has been done in Ukraine during the war and emanated from panel discussions from art therapy conferences in which the authors participated in March 2023, 2024, and 2025. These international, interdisciplinary, scientific, and practical conferences were held within the framework and sponsorship of the All-Ukrainian Art Therapy Association, together with First Aid of the Soul and the International Association for Creativity and Arts in Education and Therapy. The article contains a reflective analysis of using art therapy toward mitigating the consequences of collective traumatization of the Ukrainian people due to the war. Trauma in this context is considered as a systemic phenomenon, and the bearer of trauma is not only an individual experience but also extends to a social group—all of those who have experienced collective trauma over several generations.. Read more

Author: Dominik Havsteen-Franklin

This study explores the impact of musical soundscapes on well-being through a qualitative inductive thematic analysis. Utilizing focus groups and participatory arts-based methods, participants engaged with meditative soundscapes periodically over a week, sharing their responses through text, voice, and visual imagery. These multisensory responses were cross-referenced with focus group transcripts to deepen the thematic analysis. The findings reveal diverse positive outcomes, including personal, psychological, physiological, and sociocultural benefits. Notable emergent themes include intersensory synchrony, embodied musical affects, stress relief, self-transcendence, communal connection, and integrated well-being. The study underscores the capacity of musical experiences, which transcend cultural boundaries, to enhance well-being across these dimensions. These preliminary results highlight the potential of cross-cultural musicality to foster holistic well-being, suggesting that musical soundscapes can act as a powerful medium for enhancing well-being. Read more

Authors: Felipe Agudelo-Hernández, Mariana Rojas Echeverry, Matías Mejía Chaves

The objective of this study was to determine the impact on the reduction of mental health problems in adolescents who participate in support groups with poetry, those who participate in groups with other methodologies, and those who do not participate in support groups. This community trial, which performed in 2021, included 1252 adolescents, of whom 171 showed suicidal risk. Three groups were formed: a support group where poetry was included among the methods, a support group that worked on crafts, and a control group that did not participate in support groups. Greater recovery occurred in adolescents who participated in poetry. Recovery strategies can include artistic elements in their methodologies to increase effectiveness. Read more

Author: Lorenzo Antichi, Rebecca Zarate, Marco Giannini

Music therapy is conceptualized as a systematic process of interventions and shared experiences that promote change in individualized health and wellbeing contexts. Change processes are crucial in music therapy, but little is known about certain factors, mediators, and mechanisms that cause or lead toward such change processes. There is a strong need for developments of theoretical and methodological frameworks of change in music therapy to achieve this goal. The current body of knowledge shows a lack of research on this topic, particularly on how to strategize and study change, how to understand research design and statistical analysis of change, and how to support and strengthen what is known today about change processes in music therapy. This article is grounded in theories that address complex interventions that cause a change in music and creative arts therapies as a means of guiding a dialogue about the potential for influencing research strategies and methods that investigate change processes. The review of the literature shows that although new studies about the efficacy of music therapy have been made in recent years, literature is extremely limited about predictors, moderators, shapes of change, stages of changes, processes, and mechanisms of change. There is strong evidence that music therapy works. However, it is not entirely known how, when, and why music therapy produces a change. Based on the findings in the current body of knowledge, further studies are needed to investigate every aspect of change with a pluralistic and interdisciplinary approach, which integrates methods from across the natural sciences, mathematics, arts, behavioral, and social sciences. This article introduces a framework addressing these issues, attempts to bridge current gaps in knowledge, expand capacity in the field of music therapy research, and equip clinicians, researchers, and professionals with tools and knowledge on change process research. Read more

Authors: Kathryn Grushka

Studio Art Therapy is a unique learning ecology with border crossings between visual arts therapies and art studio practice, education, and health. The increased fluidity between research and practice spaces, art therapy, and arts health are elaborated as a concept, theorized with the western Deleuzoguattarian philosophy. Connections and differentiations between art making and art as therapy are revealed in a discussion of an empirical research project Art, Visual Narrative, and Wellbeing Project (AVNAW). Studio art therapy focuses on body, meaning, and healing. It speaks to the value of people making art, reflecting and talking about their making processes alone and together through an autoethnographic visual narrative approach to artmaking. The paper asks how studio visual artmaking can activate individual productive desire to adapt toward becoming well through artmaking. Care, community, belonging, and resilience are core to a studio art therapy learning ecology that responds to real-life experiences in the support of personal care and wellbeing. Read more

Authors: I Made Jodog, Jem Bendell

The impact of COVID-19 on Bali, Indonesia, decimated a significant part of the economy, resulting in unemployment and underemployment, which increased economic difficulties and related anxiety. Many people returned to small-holder farming to sustain their families. Away from farming, meditation is widely recognized as a means for equanimity and coping better with anxiety. In solidarity with the return to farming in Bali, the lead author of this paper created a performance art experience involving the planting of rice as a meditative practice. This paper summarizes the process and what was learned during the experience, using elements of qualitative research. The analysis affirms the role of artistic expression in supporting people’s sensemaking about societal disruption, with implications for social learning and mental well-being. Read more

Author: Paul Ngong Animbom

This paper describes the use of mural-making as part of the knowledge mobilization activities of an international research partnership project. The mural depicts the technical and academic activities of people with disabilities in a university setting as meaningful action in inclusive research processes. The main objective of this 30-meter mural painting on a wall in the University of Bamenda was to demonstrate that inclusive research could encourage the inclusion and participation of people with disabilities in all areas of academic and professional activities of the university. A mural-making protocol was developed by the faculty and implemented by the team. It included the collection, analysis, and understanding of data on inclusion; design of drawings and the mural; wall preparation; plotting; and execution of the actual mural. The brightly colored mural now draws attention to inclusion, provides a vision of hopefulness, and complements the narrative character of inclusive education and research on campus.  Read more

Author: Devika Mehta Kadam

This article aims to deepen the understanding of existential intrasubjectivity and intersubjectivity as they relate to the body, being, and nature, as experienced through the lens of Warli philosophy, particularly the Kahankar and the Ahankar. This reflexive inquiry lies at the intersection of the author’s identity as a researcher, a dance movement therapist, and a spiritual being. The contemplation includes experiencing Nature as a witness, another facet of the Warli conviction of the profound interconnectedness with the natural world, recognizing our inherent composition as part of nature. Another dimension of engaging with this philosophy is through the practice of Authentic Movement, where the imagination, the psyche, and the soul all dance together as they are witnessed nonjudgmentally. I employed an external witness as well as used self-witnessing in the form of an “inner witness.” Lastly, it explores the dance between the body as the storyteller and the consciousness as the affirmer of the spoken word, the truth.   Read more

Authors: Ying (Ingrid) Wang

This article explores the nexus of cultural appropriateness, arts-based care, and well-being in sensitive research on sexual violence, with a focus on New Zealand’s Asian community. Drawing on the author’s background as an Asian immigrant arts-based researcher, this study underscores the pivotal role of care, both culturally and through arts-based approaches, in facilitating understanding and expression. Emphasizing the importance of caring for both research participants and the researcher’s own well-being, the article advocates for culturally sensitive practices throughout the research process. It demonstrates how arts-based research methods enable creative expression and deeper cultural comprehension, enhancing care provision for participants. Moreover, the article highlights the need for culturally sensitive self-care strategies for researchers, acknowledging the emotional toll of engaging with sensitive topics. Ultimately, it calls for a more compassionate, culturally attuned, and ethically grounded approach to sensitive research within diverse cultural contexts. Read more

Author: Persephone Sextou, Stelios Kiosses

Applied theater for health and well-being suggests itself as an effective tool for social and emotional interaction and communication of emotions, developing creativity, imagination, and regulation of emotions during hospitalization. This paper aims to explore the value of communicating emotions through applied theater and storytelling in pediatrics and its potential in clinical practice in a discussion through the lens of psychodynamic therapy. We will explore the intersections, synergies, and possible collaborations between the theatrical form as a condition for openness and verbalizing pain and therapy as a method of processing and dealing with emotions. We discuss fictional stories told by children during applied theater and storytelling research interventions in hospitals as case studies through the lens of psychodynamic therapy with children. We explore these stories by using interdisciplinary, synthetic, and dialectic analysis between the researcher-artist and the psychodynamic therapist. We ask if the stories that hospitalized children create within theatrical interventions can help adults and clinical staff understand better the children’s lexicon of pain, leading to sensitive healthcare. The rich narrative discussion of the case studies indicates that applied theater in hospitals enhanced well-being support in children and as gateways for improved care. The core themes that emerged include empowerment, synergies and exchanges of emotions, emotional reassurance, and imagination. This analysis of hospitalized children’s stories from a psychodynamic therapist’s point of view has scope for informing alternative, nonmedical activities with children in the hospital and those who would benefit from clinical therapy and the performing arts. Read more