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Mental illness can be a barrier to participation in community involvement.  However, participation in Arts and cultural activities can link people back to  their community providing pathways to self-expression, recreation, training and employment. Art and Mental Health projects can be an effective  way to engage, educate and promote a positive health message.  Engagement in the arts provides the  opportunity to come together and share experiences  which can be healing and trans formative.

Dear Stein, 

I have a wonderful collection of paintings and other art works called 

Psychopathologie und bildnerischer ausdruck which is produzed by Sandoz. 

Article Bildnerische Darstellungen w�hrend der L�sung eines schizoph...

I don't know if geriatric mental health (Alzheimer's and other cognitive impairments) are outside your frame for this discussion, but there is a video documentary called I Remember Better When I Paint produced by Eric Ellena and Berna Huebner (2009).  These two film makers interviewed people in the US and Europe who were working with seniors who were well into Alzheimers and documenting gains. 

I think it was Dr. Sam Sisodia at Univ. of Chicago, who said that the amygdala, which is the seat of much visual art creativity, is unaffected by Alzheimers, so can be strengthened.  One woman who was "beyond" communication in Chicago had a couple Art Institute grad students helping her.  She did more than 20 paintings and had one more art show before she died.  This woman had been a professional artist.

Hope this helps!

Dear Stein, 

Art works from people with schizophrenia and depression:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#/media/File:Artistic_view_of_how_the_world_feels_like_with_schizophrenia_-_journal.pmed.0020146.g001.jpg

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=artwork%20from%20depression

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/artgallery.htm

I joined a 25 days workshop on "Theater” and trust me this was one of the best experiences of my life in terms of exploring my own " Self". Apart from learning various techniques and exercises of observation, concentration, team work, understanding characters, stage performance, I found it very enriching experience for me as a counselor. Theater as an art can make a huge contribution in mental health particularly if it implemented at school level.

My book "Finite Systems and Infinite Interactions.Ed Bramble Book may be useful.

Have you contacted the American Art Therapy Association?  You can access research via the Journal of the American Art therapy Association.

I am a licensed clinical art therapist (MA, ATR-BC, LPC-AT/S).  Hospitals bring in artists with no training to work with people but it is best practice to use clinically trained professionals. 

Hi, Are you looking for local experiences of art with MH in community with low level and quantitative evaluation i could send you some links and PDF of Prisoners with MH issues taking part in an art therapy short program and YP with PD taking part in art sessions. Currently setting up an art therapy group with MH and homeless adults in sheltered housing in Plymouth. For more in depth studies you could contact the British Association of Art Therapists and their research group by contacting [email protected]. for community projects with art contact [email protected] 

for art and performance: eff.org.uk or

drama at the local Theatre Royal [email protected]

and for an eclectic mix of practitioners on arts and health south west www.ahsw.org.uk

get back to me for more.

In the secure institution I worked at for many years several of the female staff members taught young men and young women knitting, crochet, and  sewing new or to repair clothing. Particularly with the knitting, and crochet the participants would sit together talking or listening to music and talking very often with a staff member present to guide the conversations or gain a further understanding of the residents. the items were often donated to the local children's hospital or some were sent to the residents family as a way to make amends or to stay in touch. You may consider this as an additional option.

We also worked with students putting on several plays, which we had obtained from the authors permission. These were performed to the residents/staff of  the agency and residents families were also invited. I hope this gives you some ideas to think about.         Tom

I am putting together a project to collect short stories of the children and other family of US steel workers.  The connection to mental health is that there is a stigma to being from an industrial working class family in the US where once the mill has closed, the workers and families should "move on."

  That is includes having no history.  If industry is "done" with these people, then they should be polite enough not to talk about the past.

  Such a cultural assumption leaves a void.  Also, the lack of writing by such people who worked in steel mills and their families reinforces an unfortunate stereotype that they do not understand their own experiences and are incapable of writing about them.

Mental health is affected. Silence doe not equal health in terms of repressing memory.  I am a writing faculty--now retired--and I am finding it difficult to express memories from my own past in a steel mill town.  Imagine the problems of those untrained in how to overcome writing blocks.

There have been some replies to a call for stories and the working title of our anthology is Children of Steel.

Think about this issue of self-repressed memory when you plan art.  It isn't only sexual memories and gender or race issues.  They may be bundled together in a steel mill milieu, no doubt.  But the void is largely that when industry is done, just walk away, pick yourself up, get a job, forget your own past.  In deindustrialized zones drug addiction is quite high.  I have talked to friends from my youth about all this.  Anecdotal but suggestive, that getting out the memories  in drawing, plays, or stories might help.

.

There are many hospitals in China using music therapy theories to help treating all kinds of patients. Mainly traditional Chinese medicine hospital. And I have seen some clinical trials reports about it. 

I recommend this new and very comprehensive book:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-textbook-of-creative-arts-health-and-wellbeing-9780199688074?cc=dk&lang=en& 

Of various activities oriented with groups over the years it was found very positive effects with various group therapies, ... painting, dance and music; walking outdoors and in the forest, up and down small hills; Brain Gym exercises, sensorizations exercises, involvement of the skin, stimulation of the senses and the sense organs, participation in cultural activities, physical games, emotions experiences, emotional involvement, etc. etc..

"Culture by prescription" is a health project with origins in the UK, implemented in the Skåne Region of Sweden the last five years, and the next three years it will be tried out four places in Denmark. It looks like a breaktrough of culture in the (public) health arena.

My next article on Music and Public Health will be publishe soon in Scandinavian Journal of Public Health.

Art is usefull  also in dementia , but there are few scientific studies about this.

New conferences and books are coming up:

Culture and Health Conference i Copenhagen 21.9.

EUPHA Conference in Stockholm 2.-4.11. - with Round Table on Music and Public Health.

2018: Springer anthology on Music and Public Health (ed. Theorell & Bonde)

There is an excellent documentary on art and Alzheimer's  that lists some research called I Remember Better When  I Paint.  View it here. Narrate dby actress Olivia DeHavilland.

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365332542/