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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
mixed feelings about glittering generalities, June 19, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Creative Healing : How to Heal Yourself by Tapping Your Hidden Creativity (Paperback)
This title caught my interest when advertized in a recent issue of a family therapy magazine. As a therapist I know many people who use art as a hobby and a way to help them through difficult times. I commend the authors for talking about this form of personal growth and therapy (although the authors shun this word, they still are taking about therapy) and for compiling many stories of whay they call "creative healing." However, I found the language and tone of this book a bit far-fetched. While I believe in the message this book conveys, its glittering generalities spoil the overall content. The authors seem to want the reader that they have discovered some new form of healing, even say that it is just emerging and "being born"; later they contradict themselves, saying art as healing has been around since the dawn of history. This is not a new field and many others have talked about the use of art in healing for many decades, including expressive arts therapists and the work of Rudolph Steiner quite early in the 20th century. However, I am most disturbed by the message that everyone will heal from becoming involved in art or working with a healing artist. Again, while I believe in the power of arts (and also alternative aand conventional medicine) to heal, the message of this book would have been more strong if the authors had infused their broad experiences in health care with their observations (if only to be ethical with an audience of physically ill and often desparate, people who may be reading the book with hope for recovery and extended life). There are too many contradictions in what the authors state (that healing arts are not therapy when it seems that all the cases demonstrate how therapeutic the arts are, that there is no concern for finding meaning when throughout they talk about finding meaning aka: interpretation of art), Yes the arts are difficult to classify and is certainly difficult to research, but some attempt could be made to get things straight. Als! o the use of the term "art" to cover all the arts is very confusing (it seems the authors do not have fine arts backgrounds other wise they would have been more sensitive to this) and the exercises are vague and would be difficult for many of my patients to follow without more specifics. If a person is truly looking for some books which will help guide them in their search for how to use art as healing, I recommend Pat Allen's Art is a Way of Knowing and Shaun McNiff's Trust the Process; these are by two authors who seem to have a grasp of the real essentials of art for healing and growth.
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32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Creative Healing shows you how to use art for healing., July 9, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Creative Healing : How to Heal Yourself by Tapping Your Hidden Creativity (Paperback)
As one of the artists with Shands Arts in Medicine, the pioneering program discussed in Creative Healing, I feel compelled to respond to some of the reviews that have appeared here. While the Shands AIM program is certainly not the first, it is one of the most comprehensive programs in the country. We have had hundreds of artists volunteer their time over the years. Authors Samuels and Lane advocate art as an adjunct to medical care; they encourage sterile, dry, humorless medical institutions to add to their ranks those people whose only task is help patients express their pain, sadness, wishes, joy, anxiety, happiness, or fear, not from any clinical base, but from a human, craetive space. I work with patients on a regular basis, and I see how patients and families are eager to have us enter their rooms. How much joy is expressed when we encourage them to sing, dance, draw, paint, tell stories, write poetry. They are eager to participate, to make art, to dance from wheel chairs, and squish paint together between pieces of colored paper, to write poetry. You have only to read the messages on the tile wall in the lobby and the healing ceiling tiles to know how important simple creative acts are to people with life-threatening illness. Nurses and doctors invite us to visit particular patients. We offer creative breaks for hospital staff and welcome diversions for patient's families who spend long hours in the hospital often far away from home. These stories may seem unbelievable, but I see amazing things happen every day I am at the hospital. Is it too good to be true? Nope. The synergy of art and healing is a surprise for anyone who embarks on the effort, not as a job, but as a gift. Rather than laying claim to a concept, Lane and Samuels are spreading the word. It is past time for hospitals and medical institutions to integrate art into the healing environment. Healing is more than a result of medical attention, it's a result of attention to the whole body, mind, and spirit. As far as the! comments about erroneous anthropology, one as only to read the great controversies within that discipline itself to know that there are already a variety of opinions on the subject. Science is even beginning to rethink evolution! And what about those flying dinosaurs? I think the past is open to speculation and I support those who are creative enough to view the world with an open mind. Creative Healing has a wealth of information about creating personal art and about bringing art into medical settings. It's a do-it-yourself manual, complete with exercises, ideas, and experiences. I applaud the authors' efforts and look forward to hearing stories from other writers who have pioneered these concepts. The more that is written, the more likely those in charge of planning and designing hosptials will realize that an art room is as important as an operating room.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, June 13, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Creative Healing : How to Heal Yourself by Tapping Your Hidden Creativity (Paperback)
As an artist, therapist, and expressive therapist I wasdisappointed with the contents of this book. While as an artist Iagree that there is a healing quality to the arts, this book was not well-researched in terms of the arts, art history (many erroneous facts from cave art to the present-- an anthropologist's and art historian's nightmare!!), or the connections between art and nightmare!!), or the connections between art and medicine. They are also under the impression that they have discovered "art and hea\ ling," summarily dismissing arts therapies as diagnostic and treatment-oriented (erroneous again), thus carving out what they insist is their own unique philosophy about arts and healing. In this respect, they either have not done their homework or decided to bypass what has already been talked about for several decades about arts and healing and the uses of arts as therapies. The authors also convey the message that "healing artists" can help you to overcome your distress, illness, and other woes. They also assert that "Making healing art is easy. Anyone can heal himself or herself with art." Again, I agree with the premise-- art has been important in my life as a healing force-- but there have been well-trained guides and facilitators along the way, too (usually in the form of people like Samuels and Rockwell who has professional training in working within healthcare). While I am sure many compassionate, socially-minded and caring artists are out there, as a psychotherapist as well as an artist, I would be a bit more cautious about telling people they need a "healing artist" to help solve a depression or trauma. And although "art heals," it is a bit of a stretch to say that anyone can heal himself with art and that the process is easy. Anyone who has tried to help someone change, transform, or emotionally repair someone (through traditional or non-traditional medicine, psychotherapy, or any other healing art form), or who has had to overcome trauma! or crisis in his or her life knows that this process of reparation (whether is be body, soul, or psyche)is not at all easy or foolproof. The book's strong points are artists' examples of healing arts. The weakess point, however, comes across throughout-- that the authors are not as deeply connected to the healing arts as the artists they speak of. It seems that they found a "gold mine" through gathering all these stories into one book. They are to be commended for collecting some many wonderful stories about these artists and it is these stories which convey the essence of why art helps and heals in certaingnore the snake oil in cases. If the reader can focus on these stories this is a book worth reading.
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