Customer Reviews

Art-Based Research

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This book was one of the assigned texts in the art therapy research class I am taking now. Although I have chosen to become an art therapist, I still have years of traditional thinking to work out of my system...on what kind of output (research, in this case) has value. This includes a tendency to think of research as most important when it is of the quantitative variety. Some people may see nothing problematic in this, but as a budding art therapist, I find this to be one of my deficits. I need to really embrace the art process and the possibilities for investigating it in various kinds of research...think outside the box, if you will. And I found this book to be fantastic when used to that end. While reading each chapter, I found myself pausing to reflect on new ideas that had come to mind on what I could choose to research, inspired by McNiff's writing. And if that weren't enough, the last chapter is full of more suggestions for areas of study. True, this book was first published 10 years ago, so one ought to check for new developments in the literature before committing oneself to a specific topic. But this book jump started my brain in a way that I knew I needed, and for that I thought it was worth every minute I spent reading it.

I recognize that McNiff is a pioneer in art therapy and advocates for emergent research methods in art therapy, however; the title, Art-Based Research, led me to think he may have widened the lens to include research in the arts at large. The book is good, as are most of McNiff's offerings, I was merely hoping for a broader view.

There's much to be found in this book .Many sugestions are made for further research and many links are made to previous material.Mc Niff's language and stance are typically poetic/tricky.I suspect that art therapy students will find it a very useful introduction to this area with much to ponder on . I'm glad to have it on my bookshelf+ to have it to thumb through from time to time. N.B. I havn't read ( every word) cover to cover - but then I don't do that .