Promoting Health Through Creativity: For Professionals in Health, Arts and Education

ISBN-13: 9781861564788 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 236 str.

Therese Schmid University of Newcastle; Therese Schmid; Roberto Ed. Schmid

Opis

This book is about redefining the value to health of creativity. Creativity derives from biological changes during human evolution as a tool that is needed for survival. The successful use of creativity generates feelings of pleasure and self-esteem that are beneficial to health. In particular, it can help depression. Current values do not give adequate importance to creativity, and the author challenges these values in this book. The book contains contributed chapters on a theory of creativity as an innate capacity, the therapeutic benefits of creativity, factors that encourage or inhibit creativity and current research on these, and accounts of creativity both as individual projects and as groupwork.

Spis treści

Contributors.

Foreword.

Preface.

Acknowledgements.

Chapter 1 Promoting Health Through Creativity – an Introduction. (Therese Schmid).

Chapter 2 A Theory of creativity – an Innate Capacity. (Therese Schmid).

Chapter 3 Occupational Genesis – Creativity and Health. (Estelle B. Breines).

Chapter 4 The Therapeutic Benefits of Creativity. (Jennifer Creek).

Chapter 5 Factors That Encourage or Inhibit creativity. (Frances Reynolds).

Chapter 6 The Effects of Creativity on Physical and Psychological Well–being. (Frances Reynolds).

Chapter 7 Individual Accounts on The Effect of Creative Activity on health and well–being. (Compiled and edited by Therese Schmid).

Chapter 8 Integrating The firelight of Creativity. Sally Denshire).

Chapter 9 Group Projects – Experiences and Outcomes of creativity. (Compiled and edited by Therese Schmid).

Chapter 10 What is to be Done? (Therese Schmid).

Index.

Blurb

This book is about redefining the health values of creativity. Schmid evidences that creativity is more than the capacity to be inventive or innovative. It is more than the capacity to create great works of art or music or dance. It derives from biological changes during human evolution as a tool that is needed for survival. Everybody has the capacity, and its successful use generates feelings of pleasure and self–esteem that are beneficial to health.  Denial of creativity is a serious issue and is imbedded in modern values.

 Schmid expresses her views about important strategies for the future. They will require acceptance by health, arts and education professionals that everyday creativity is a resource of high value for health, particularly as it could affect the incidence of depression. She recommends new approaches to promotion policies, education at all levels, and research. Schmid says that such strategies, supported by long–term planning and funding, would assist in the alleviation of a problem that costs the community billions of dollars every year.