Customer Reviews

Art and Healing: Using Expressive Art to Heal Your Body, Mind, and Spirit

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a great book for lay people. Many books of this type are too academic, densely written or boring to the average non-professional reader who might be interested in this topic. The writer makes the concept so easy to understand. It's filled with examples of interesting (and often beautiful) art work with words and stories by the creators. Very powerful to have the individuals who themselves have gone through life-threatening illnesses and traumatic situations talk about the healing power of art. Particularly fascinating to see examples of how art can be used globally and with the environment. Kudos to the all the people who shared so honestly their intimate stories and viewpoints, and congratulations to the author for compiling such a compelling body of work.

This book is an inspiration! The material is presented simply, clearly, and in a logical progression. Ater reading the first few chapters, which talk about how to use the art and healing process, and the differences in expressing emotions verbally and through imagery, I felt I had a much better understanding of the topic and the confidence to try the process for myself. One of the things I especially like about it, is that it contains plenty of anecdotal work with clients and includes the artwork that came out of their process (which helped relieve the insecurity I felt about my own art ability). At the end of each chapter, Ganim gives the reader exercises to try at home, along with guided visualizations to help relax you into each exercise. Then she provides self-dialoguing questions to help you understand what your images might mean. I found this book the next best thing to taking a workshop on Art and Healing. The only thing that would make it better would be to offer audio tapes with the guided visualizations on it, which would make it that much easier to work on this at home.

Art and healing-- such an intriguing topic and title. The author has pulled together a wealth of images and stories about artists who "heal" and how art has the capacity to do the same. But I was extremely disappointed that the author stooped to claims beyond what has been researched about art as a healer-- many claims about art, imagery, and visualization are made that are not substantiated by research other than anecdotal claims. The introduction claims there is neurological evidence of art, prayer and healing all coming from the same place; if this is so, please share the research reference because that would be a major find in this century. Also, an innordinate amount of time is spent emphasizing how to process art images-- how does this or that color feel, what does this or that mean, etc. There are many other books that do this much better -- Trust the Process by McNiff, Art is a Way of Knowing by Allen, The Art Therapy Sourcebook by Malchiodi, and Mission of Art by Grey. The author has apparently missed these or chosen to ignore their messages, and also by-passed the entire field of art therapy that has for 40 years explored the material the author offers as new and ground-breaking. On the positive side, the images may inspire the reader to make art and that is what is most important.

Ms. Ganim's wealth of experience, fluency in art, and intuitive understanding of the human experience comes through in this book. Case studies and excellent color plates help to put life into the points and exercises she gives. There is a tendency to hyperbole and sometimes what seems too good to be true may be just that. But I concede that tendency to anyone who is enthusiastic about their work. This book is made to be used. The exercises are doable and procede in a logical, stepwise fashion. No one needs to be an artist to benefit from these exercises. Ms. Ganim's definition of healing as opposed to cure puts this work in perspective and gives it validity. I would highly recommend it to anyone seriously looking to experience healing in mind, body, and spirit.

In contrast to the previous reviewer, I have to say that this book is not groundbreaking. The author has simply taken material that already exists in the fields of art therapy and arts medicine, fashioned it into a book. There are so many other books that deal with this material such as MCNiff's Art as Medicine, Allen's Art is a Way of Knowing, and Malchiodi's Art Therapy Sourcebook, each provides more grounded, novel information than what is provided in this particular book. I also kept wishing that the author did not refer to cancer or illness as a gift-- that concept is tired and not appropriate to any literature on healing wisdom. This book would have been wiser to stay away from that all together.

I think this book does an excellent job of theory and technique. The book does not suggest that one has to be in "art therapy" to use art as a healing tool! The book is ground-breaking in that it gives the reader the impression that art is good for you and it does not take rocket science to maximize the healing potential of the arts.

This book promotes the idea that art is healing; those of us who use art for healing can certainly agree with that. However, the author becomes annoying when she also promotes beliefs such as "cancer is a gift". I happen to work as an expressive arts therapist with cancer patients and let me tell you, cancer is not a gift and it is insensitive and an insult to all cancer survivors to promote such new-age hogwash. Like art, everyone has their own experience of cancer and many never come to terms with it as a gift or blessing, especially those in extreme pain or discomfort. I also agree with the reviewer who noted that there are many unproven statements in this book about things that are better left to science and medicine. It is too bad the author resorted to these types of inaccurate statements, because the art itself in this book could have been a testimony to its healing powers.

As a survivor of serious illness, I was really disappointed by the message of this book that art making would help to reveal the hidden metaphors of illness. Ideas such as cancer results from emotional repression of anger and heart disease is the lack of ability to love are insulting,frankly, to people who have serious medical conditions. The information in this book, while presented in an easy-to-read format, is simplistic in its tone and content. The author spends more time talking about herself and her workshops than giving the reader some real guidance on art making for healing. Illustrations are beautiful, but the content was less than satisfying

This is a very good book to help anyone learn about expressive arts and to use them for healing of self or for others. Simple and yet deep at the same time. Ganim takes us on a jouney and show us how to approach our emotions through the art work. The examples of visual pieces are just wonderful.

Excellent for individual work, group therapy, and most definitely children. This book is a very fast read and you may find yourself flying a little to fast through the pages...but I would have to say this is a worthy book to any clinician or client who want to gain understanding for themselves and others.

As an artist and teacher who has personally experienced the powerful healing benefits of the creative act, I applaud this book! I believe it can serve many who would not otherwise seek out an art therapist or art therapy texts. Don't dismiss it as "New age hogwash" until you try it yourself -- the proof is in getting those creative juices going and seeing where they take you. You can change and learn in ways that will amaze you --- and the best part is that YOUR creative spirit will show you the way, with a little help from guidebooks such as this.