Don't underestimate the power of small creative happenings

In an article in September's issue of the magazine Literary Review Alexa Hazel (2019) wrote about how, in 2014, small pieces of printers' type were found washed ashore on the banks of the River Thames. These were the products of one T J Cobden-Sanderson who, in 1900, founded Doves Press. When a business partner tried to appropriate the Doves Press type for commercial use, Cobden-Sanderson cast all 2,600 pieces of type into the river rather than allow his creation to be sullied by commercialism.

Hazel suggests the miraculous reappearance of pieces of Doves Press type after more than 100 years illustrates that "what's frivolous and a little mad can have surprising endurance" (2019:  64). A propos, she quotes Norman Potter, the English cabinetmaker, designer, poet and teacher. In his book Models & Constructs Potter wrote: "the long-term effects of small creative happenings tend to be underestimated."

I like to believe this is true, especially as most of my own creative enterprises - improvisational music workshops with a handful of participants or small gigs where I perform to tiny audiences in 'cosy' venues - could be best described as small creative happenings. It would be comforting to think they had a longer-term effect which might go on resonating after the music ended and people had gone home.   

If you're seeking harder evidence of the lasting beneficial impacts of the arts, you could do worse than to look to a recent report published by the World Health Organisation (Fancourt and Finn, 2019). The WHO report is the largest scoping review ever published on arts and health and synthesises the global evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and wellbeing. It includes findings from over 3,000 peer-reviewed published studies and identifies a major role for the arts not only in the prevention of ill-health and the promotion of health but also (more surprisingly) in the management and treatment of illness across the lifespan.

When it comes to prevention and promotion, the report finds the arts can, for example, affect the social determinants of health (e.g. developing social cohesion and reducing social inequalities) as well as helping to prevent ill health (by enhancing wellbeing and reducing the impact of trauma or the risk of cognitive decline.) In terms of management and treatment of existing conditions, it found the arts can help many groups of people, including those experiencing mental illness (e.g. by supporting recovery from perinatal mental illness and after trauma and abuse) as well as people with neurological disorders (including autism, cerebral palsy, stroke, degenerative neurological disorders and dementia).  The full report can be read here.

References

Fancourt, D. and Finn, S. (2019). What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being? A scoping review. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2019 (Health Evidence Network (HEN) synthesis report 67).

Available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329834/9789289054553-eng.pdf

Hazel, A. (2019). Printing on Ice, Literary Review, September 2019: 64.

Potter, N. (2008).  Models & Constructs: margin notes to a design culture. London: Hyphen Press.  

Joining the damned and despised literati

The American poet Ezra Pound described the literati as "damned and despised" while the Serbian poet Dejan Stojanović wrote: “There are too many literati, yet very few are smart; knowledge is acquired far too easily.” Well, I don't care because, it seems, I've now officially joined the literati...

I was delighted recently to receive an email from Emerald Publishing. They manage a portfolio of over 300 academic journals, including the 'Journal of Public Mental Health'. At the end of last year, the journal published an article of mine called 'Enhancing public mental health and wellbeing through creative arts participation'. The process of working on this particular article was more fraught than usual because my wife had been seriously ill that summer and had been undergoing treatment when I was, somewhat distractedly, asked to make pre-publication revisions to the article! 

So you can imagine how surprised and thrilled I was to hear from Emerald that the article had achieved recognition as an Outstanding Paper in the 2019 Emerald Literati Awards. Over the last thirty years I've had around 100 articles published in various journals and magazines but I've never received an award for any of them prior to this, so it means a lot to me. 

I'd like to give my sincere thanks to the journal's editor Professor Woody Caan and to the editorial board. The award-winning article has been made freely available for twelve months so it can be widely shared with networks and colleagues and you can read the full text of the paper here.

The Arts Health Early Career Research Network

Last month I was contacted by Dr Robyn Dowlen, of the University of Manchester, who edits the blog of the Arts Health Early Career Research Network. Robyn is a research associate working on developing a couple-management guide for couples where one partner has a diagnosis of dementia. Her PhD focused on understanding the 'in the moment' embodied and sensory experiences of people living with dementia when engaging with music.

Until Robyn contacted me, I hadn't come across the Arts Health Early Career Research Network before, but I've since learnt it's a community of over 850 members from 30 countries, which brings together early career researchers working on projects that lie at the intersection of the arts, humanities, health and medicine.

Having read my book Creativity, Wellbeing and Mental Health Practice, Robyn very kindly invited me to be the first author to be interviewed on the Arts Health ECRN blog, In the interview, I spoke about the inspiration behind my book and discussed how my work fits in with wider developments in arts and health research, policy and practice. You can read the full interview here:

https://www.artshealthecrn.com/post/interview-with-tony-gillam-author-of-creativity-wellbeing-and-mental-health-practice

Connecting in Cambridge

Mental Health Nursing Cohort Connect Day, 

24 May 2019, 

Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

Anglia Ruskin University's
Young Street Building

Back in February, I was contacted by an enterprising mental health nursing student called Mark Lecomber. Mark was in the final year of his course at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge and he'd become aware of my work on creativity and mental health while doing a literature review on arts on prescription. He, along with some other third year nursing students, also happened to be involved in putting together an event called a Cohort Connect Day in which the student mental health nurses from years one, two and three of the course would come together, and Mark wondered if I'd come over to Cambridge to speak about the value of creativity and how it has shaped and informed my role as a mental health nurse. 

I'm not sure if I completely met this brief, but I was delighted to speak to an enthusiastic and engaged audience of students and mental health nursing academics at the end of May. I was made to feel very welcome on what was my first visit to Anglia Ruskin University, and was even given a guided tour of the impressive Young Street building. I had the pleasure of meeting and hearing some of the other speakers at the Cohort Connect Day. Among these were Nina Bailey - a learning disabilities nurse from the Huntercombe Group - and Sharon Gilfoyle - Head of Recovery and Resilience at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust and also a consultant with ImROC (Implementing Recovery through Organisational Change.) Sharon's talk reminded me of some training I had received from ImROC a few years back, which was instrumental in our decision to employ Peer Support Workers in the Early Intervention Service I then managed.   

The word 'synergies' is a bit over-used these days, but it struck me there were a lot of deep connections between what we were all saying. Nina spoke about Positive Behaviour Management and supporting people to make choices and have opportunities, Sharon remarked how peer support workers can bring about change in organisational culture and I talked about transforming the organisational culture of mental health care through creativity. One of the students suggested we could avoid risk management becoming a stumbling block in mental health care by, instead, stressing the value of improvisation. This, of course, was music to my ears. When Carson et al., (2003) discuss risk-taking in the context of family therapy they don't mean engaging in dangerous activities but responding intuitively to clients, being "in the moment" and "thinking on one's feet", all aspects of improvisation. Sawyer (2012) describes how improvising jazz groups create a product which is both unpredictable and yet more suitable to the purpose and hence, as the Anglia Ruskin student intuited, there is great value in mental health practitioners - and service users - being open to improvisation. 

Many thanks to Mark and his fellow students and to Pepsi Takawira (Senior Lecturer/Course Leader) and colleagues at Anglia Ruskin University for making my visit to Cambridge so enjoyable and rewarding.

References

Carson, D.K, Becker, K.W., Vance, K.E. & Forth, N.L. (2003). The role of creativity in marriage and family therapy practice: A national online study. Contemporary Family Therapy, 25 (1), 89-109.

Sawyer, R K. (2012). Explaining creativity: The science of human innovation. (2nd ed.) Oxford:  Oxford University Press. 

Seeking kinship in the thick of fire and poison

"Nobody can meddle with fire or poison without being affected in some vulnerable spot; for the true physician does not stand outside his work but always in the thick of it..." (Jung, 1977: 5). This striking quote from Carl Jung acknowledges the vicarious trauma inherent in working in health and social care as well as the courage and resilience needed to follow such a vocation. I came across it in an excellent, recently-published book called Coping and Thriving in Nursing (Martin, 2018). It reminded me that, back in 1990, I'd reviewed a book called The Staff Nurse's Survival Guide (Horne, 1990) and I'm pleased to note that nurses are now being encouraged to cope and thrive rather than merely to survive.

Peter J Martin, the editor of Coping and Thriving in Nursing, explains in his introduction: "Our initial title used the word 'surviving' but ... we wanted to highlight that nurses can do more than survive... If nurses are coping and thriving, then they can discover or rediscover the satisfaction that led them into the job in the first place (and) then they are in a much stronger position to help people find a sense of hope in illness and adversity...." (Martin, 2018: 3). This is a similar argument to the one I make in my book Creativity, Wellbeing and Mental Health Practice, where I suggest that, if nurses can discover or rediscover creative ways of working, this can improve the wellbeing of service users and service providers alike (Gillam, 2018).

Coping and Thriving in Nursing deals, in a very readable and pragmatic way, with embracing change, reconnecting with our nursing values, the relationship between nursing and mindfulness and developing self-compassion. I especially liked the emphasis on the importance of kinship among healthcare staff. We need to understand that suffering and sometimes feeling inadequate to the task are shared experiences and that healthcare staff can support one another by being compassionate to themselves and to each other. The authors recognise that clinical workplace environments and healthcare organisations can be surprisingly hostile and unconductive to the cultivation of kinship. This being the case, it is all the more important that nurses and other health and social care professionals are self-compassionate, seeking out mutual support, supervision and connection. The book urges us to adopt an attitude of 'intelligent kindness' that "unsentimentally values kinship and kindness, understanding their creative power..." (Martin, 2018: 163). In the face of fire and poison, such kinship, kindness and creativity can be powerful resources.    

   

References

Gillam, T. (2018) Creativity, Wellbeing and Mental Health Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Horne, E.M. (1990)The Staff Nurse's Survival Guide. London: Wolfe.

Jung, C.G. (1977) The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, original from University of Minnesota. New York: Pantheon Books.

Martin, P.J. (ed.) (2018) Coping and Thriving in Nursing. London: Sage.

A Manifesto for Creativity

I was intrigued to learn of the recent publication of a creativity manifesto. Published as a commentary in the Journal of Creative Behaviour, this manifesto is the product of a collaboration of twenty scholars, many of whom are familiar names in the field of creativity research (Glăveanu et al., 2019). Their aim is to build common ground and invite the community of creativity researchers and practitioners to reflect upon, study and cultivate creativity as a socio-cultural phenomenon. The authors remind us that a manifesto is a written statement of beliefs and aims intended to mark a conceptual shift within a field.

There is something confident and bold about writing and publishing a manifesto. I'm reminded of the surrealist poet André Breton who produced his first Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924. In this short pamphlet Breton tried to define surrealism. He provided examples of surrealist poetry and literature as well as attempting to place the movement in its artistic and cultural context. Being a surrealist, of course, Breton also included a certain amount of absurdist humour in his manifesto.

The authors of the new creativity manifesto offer their document in the spirit not of an exclusive list but as something to generate fruitful conversations. They warn readers against agreeing blindly with the manifesto's points or using them as a box-ticking exercise.

The paper, titled Advancing Creativity Theory and Research: A Socio-cultural Manifesto, is only five pages long and so it is admirably concise. One of the key points for me is the proposition that Creative action is, at all times, relational.  The authors explain:

"There is no form of human creativity that does not rely on direct, mediated, or implicit social interaction or exchanges. Even when working in solitude, we implicitly build on and respond to the views, knowledge, and expectations of other people. While creating, the person can recurrently become his or her own “audience” by standing back and evaluating his or her process and its outcome as others would. It is important to note here that we do not imply that people will always be more creative when working together in explicit collaborations. The social element should not be romanticized; personal conflicts, incompatible styles, and other issues may decrease collaborative creative efforts. However, the lifelong development of creativity cannot be conceived outside of self–other relations" (Glăveanu et al., 2019: 2).

While the manifesto makes no explicit reference to wellbeing or mental health, it seems to me that, apart from the above suggestion that creativity depends upon connecting with others, another assertion - that Creativity is meaningful - is highly relevant here. As the authors elaborate:

"Creative outcomes are not only new and appropriate for a certain task; they can give meaning and even joy to our existence and, as such, represent a key marker of our humanity. Creative acts – at all levels of expression and eminence – offer a legacy that can soften our impending mortality (...) it is imperative to reflect on how creativity can contribute to the development and cultivation of those values and virtues that lead to living meaningful, peaceful, sustainable, and wise lives." (Glăveanu et al., 2019: 3).

Meaning, sustainability, peace and wisdom. These are surely important elements of wellbeing and mental health and any manifesto that highlights them gets my vote.

References

Breton, André, (1972). Manifestoes of surrealism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Glăveanu, Vlad Petre & Hanchett Hanson, Michael & Baer, John & Barbot, Baptiste & Clapp, Edward & Corazza, Giovanni & Hennessey, Beth & Kaufman, James & Lebuda, Izabela & Lubart, Todd & Montuori, Alfonso & Ness, Ingunn & Plucker, Jonathan & Reiter-Palmon, Roni & Sierra, Zayda & Simonton, Dean Keith & Souza Neves-Pereira, Monica & J. Sternberg, Robert. (2019). Advancing Creativity Theory and Research: A Socio-cultural Manifesto. The Journal of Creative Behavior. 10.1002/jocb.395. Available at:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330606484_Advancing_Creativity_Theory_and_Research_A_Socio-cultural_Manifesto

On becoming a caretaker of the creative space

Professor Woody Caan is a professorial fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and editor of the Journal of Public Mental Health. Earlier this year, Professor Caan kindly invited me to contribute an article to the journal which, I'm delighted to say, is published in this month's issue (Gillam, 2018a).  I ended up giving my article the rather wordy title: Enhancing public mental health and wellbeing through creative arts participation.  In it, I discuss how, as a mental health nurse with a lifelong interest in creativity and the creative arts I have, for many years now, explored creative approaches to fostering wellbeing. While my main professional focus has been on the wellbeing of the users and providers of mental health services, this has been in the context of an underlying assumption that the mental health and wellbeing of the wider community can also be enhanced through creative activity.

One of the areas of participatory arts on which the article focuses is my work in community music with an initiative called the Music Workshop Project. As I explain in the article: "in my most recent book, I wrote elegiacally about the Music Workshop Project, believing my days of therapeutic music-making were over. Serendipitously, however, I have more recently been invited by Dudley MIND (a local West Midlands branch of the Mental Health charity) to facilitate a series of music workshop sessions for wellbeing."

I go on to describe a shift in my attitude to this kind of work: "Although I remain a registered mental health nurse, I approach these sessions as participatory arts activities which I facilitate as a musician rather than as a nurse. In this context, I am a musical group leader or, as McNiff (2004) might more poetically describe it, the 'keeper' or 'caretaker' of the 'studio' or creative space. I have found it helpful, in being clear about my role, to identify with McNiff's view that:  "As a 'keeper' or 'caretaker' of the studio, my primary function is to kindle the soul of the place, to maintain its vitality and its ability to engage people in highly individual  ways..." (p.20). This is not how mental health nurses would typically describe their function though I would argue that, if nurses are to be truly concerned with the wellbeing of society (and not just the health of mental health service users) then they do need to be skilled at facilitating flourishing  (Gillam, 2018b.)"

At the end of November, I ran one of these sessions for Dudley MIND. All the participants seemed to enjoy the mixture of improvised extended 'jams' and on-the-hoof, ad-libbed renditions of half-remembered pop songs. We even did a few Christmas tunes, knowing that we would not be meeting again until after the festive season. After the session had ended, I asked a first-time participant how he found the group.

"Yes, it was alright that was,"  he said. "I've been to some of the other activities - quizzes and things - but I can't always think what to say quick enough.  But with this music group, that doesn't matter. I think I'll come again."

References

Gillam, T. (2018a). Enhancing public mental health and wellbeing through creative arts participation. Journal of Public Mental Health 17 (4), 148-156.

Gillam, T. (2018b). Creativity, wellbeing and mental health practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

McNiff, S. (2004). Art heals: How creativity cures the soul. Boston, Mass.: Shambala Publications.