2410 research outputs found
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ICANFEEL: A DIGITAL ART ACTIVITY TO SUPPORT DISTRESS DETECTION IN ADULT ONCOLOGICAL PATIENTS
Get PDFConsidered the 6th vital sign, distress, a combination of hopelessness, anxiety, fear, and depression, can impact patients’ quality of life, treatment adherence, and mortality. While screening is required in oncological centers, distress remains under-detected. This study examined the use of Icanfeel, a novel digital art-based tool, to complement traditional psychometric assessments such as Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS), to support patients’ expressions of symptoms and distress detection. Hospitalized adult oncological patients (N = 22) engaged twice with Icanfeel and with an active control condition. At various time points during the protocol, patients self-reported symptom burden using ESAS, self-disclosure using the Distress Disclosure Index, and distress intensity using the Distress-Thermometer and Problem-List. In terms of feasibility, 80% of participants rated their use of Icanfeel positively and as accessible. Quantitatively, distress disclosure remained unchanged but a statistically significant reduction in reported symptom burden following Icanfeel sessions was observed (p \u3c 0.001, effect size = 0.96). Qualitative findings highlighted the diverse ways patients used images as metaphors to articulate symptoms, with text/audio data categorized into adaptive, maladaptive, and neutral emotions. The novel integration of a scalable art-based intervention with standardized symptom assessments offered a nuanced understanding of distress expression. Limitations included a small and homogenous sample precluding generalization of results. Future research should expand the sample size and diversity, incorporate technological refinements such as AI-generated personalized imagery, and assess long-term effects on self-disclosure. Icanfeel aligns with trends in digitalized health and patient-centered innovation, emphasizing the importance of patient-reported outcomes in improving quality of care
More Than Dress-Up: A Literature Review of The Function of Costume in Drama Therapy
Get PDFThis literature review examined the role of costume as a therapeutic tool in drama therapy; an area that, despite its potential, remains underexplored. The studies located focused on how costume may facilitate identity exploration and emotional expression. The paper synthesized existing literature on drama therapy\u27s core processes, particularly embodiment and dramatic projection, while expanding the definition of costume to include masks and puppets. The literature illuminated the psychological and cultural significance of dress and identity, with studies that investigated how costume influenced both self-perception and external perception. The literature addressed the evolution of costume use in virtual therapy settings, illustrating its transformative, expressive, and relational capacities. By positioning costume as an essential component of drama therapy, this review aimed to stimulate further research and understanding of its impact on therapeutic practice. Recommendations emphasized the necessity for developing operationalized theories for the use of costume in the therapeutic process
Healing Our Relations Emergent Folk Art Creation Community Project for Cultural Healing and Reconciliation
Get PDFSettler colonial disconnection from place perpetuates ongoing harm to Indigenous communities, ecosystems, and cultural systems through extraction, displacement, and erasure. This community engagement project explores how communities can develop emergent cultural practices that acknowledge historical and ongoing harms while building toward repair and right relationship. Through a series of five participatory workshops combining movement, storytelling, and folk dance creation; seven community members and three culture bearers, understood as elders explored their relationship with place through embodied practice. The research utilized an anti-colonial arts-based methodology centered on community wisdom while documenting the process through multiple complementary methods. Findings demonstrate that folk dance practices can help communities recognize themselves as cultural beings, transform embodied patterns of disconnection, and develop new forms of ethical relationship with place.
This work contributes to understanding how arts-based practices can support cultural reconciliation while offering specific methodologies for ethical cultural creation in settler colonial contexts. The resulting folk dance practice serves as both an outcome and ongoing vehicle for community engagement, creating tangible ways to embody concepts of ethical relationship with place
Adolescents and Addictions: An Expressive Arts Therapy Prevention Intervention in India – Development of a Method
Get PDFThis thesis aims to propose an expressive arts therapy prevention intervention for substance use among adolescents in India. Adolescence is a period defined by many physiological and psychological changes and is considered to be a time of high-risk for the initiation of substance use. The prevalence of substance use amongst Indian adolescents is growing every year, with most adolescents engaging in frequent use of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and inhalants. This thesis intends to develop and implement an expressive arts therapy prevention intervention for adolescents. The current research was conducted in a private school in Punjab, India with 50 students of class 11 and 12. The prevention intervention focused on addressing students’ perceptions of substance use, imparting psychoeducation, and helping develop coping skills that would act as protective factors for the participants. The prevention intervention was administered in the form of one 90-minute workshop and yielded positive feedback from the students and the school counsellor. The participants engaged in an in-depth discourse about substance use, shared their experiences with family members who use substances, asked about ways they can manage academic stress and familial pressures, and practiced various coping skills when playing the coping skills bingo. The workshop helped students gain clarity on the consequences of long-term substance use and clarified any misconceptions they held about substance use. This prevention intervention has a strong clinical application for children of class 8 and above and can help create awareness, prevention, and protective factors to combat substance use in this population
Collage as a Facilitator of Connection and Belonging: An Application of Art Therapy with SGM Clients
Get PDFThis research explored themes of connection and belonging in SGM clients in individual art therapy sessions through the medium of collage. An arts-based research method was developed utilizing the medium of collage in session with clients, followed with reflective response collages and journaling to analyze the data observed. Across 5 art therapy sessions, clients engaging in collage facilitated deeper therapeutic rapport and safety, enhanced a sense of connection with the self, and helped to process barriers and desires around clients’ close relationships
Dancing With God: Jewish Prayer Through the Lens of Dance/Movement Therapy
Get PDFThis Capstone Thesis literature review explores movement in Jewish prayer within the context of the Kestenberg Movement Profile. Jewish prayer, specifically the amidah, features swaying movements called shokeling that serve as an embodied component of conversation with God. Prayer movements and postures enhance the prayer experience, as described in Hasidic thought.The Kestenberg Movement Profile is a form of movement analysis that observes how movements can indicate a sense of connection and serve as an expression of needs.These observations suggest that using Authentic Movement in a Dance/Movement Therapy session may increase clients’ awareness of a their sense of attachment toward God and people around them
Wild Magic Farms: Increasing Student Engagement and Decreasing Academic Regression in Middle School Extended School Year Through Use of a Role-Playing Game
Get PDFThe Extended School Year (ESY) is a federal program that falls under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Law (2004) as part of Special Education in public schools in the United States. It is intended to help reduce regression in student progress towards Individualized Education Program goals. However, in New Hampshire, ESY struggles with a lack of clear goals, student buy-in and quality engagement. This study examined how a researcher designed role-playing game (RPG) could impact both summer academic regression and student engagement in a middle school ESY. Utilizing i-Ready testing (n=13) data and attendance data (n=9), this study compared ESY 2023 results with ESY 2024 results. Additionally, qualitative measures were used to collect student and staff impressions of ESY: student surveys, student small-group interviews, staff small-group interviews and work sample collection. The study determined that using this RPG positively impacted students’ emotional and cognitive engagement in ESY. It also determined that the RPG intervention was equally as good at preventing academic regression in mathematics as the more traditional methods used in 2023, however it was not as successful at preventing regression in reading. This study notes that i-Ready data cannot be used for measuring student writing skills, and suggests ways that ESY could be improved, including better communication between adults and a program purposefully designed with engagement in mind
An Adaptive Paradox: Improvised Drama Therapy and Dialectical Behavior for Eating Disorders in Teens
Get PDFThe complexity of treating eating disorders compels professionals to investigate collaborative and integrative approaches to address psychological rigidity and emotional aversion in affected individuals. Mindfulness within Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and improvisational theater techniques may contribute to advancing emotional flexibility. This thesis study explored spontaneity in expressive therapy and gauged budding adaptive skills related to emotion regulation in minors with eating disorders. At a behavioral health center in Southern California, I held a dual role as a group facilitator and trainee drama therapist; I therein joined DBT and improvised drama therapy methods into a group treatment setting for ages 14 to 17. Although I discovered several creative factors to influence emotional regulation, improvisation-based drama therapy (DT)—executed inside a secure play space—favored improved versatility and participation in treatment. This report demonstrated improvision in DT could serve as a worthwhile intervention for adolescents with eating disorders. However, further research is needed before introducing improvised DT to other therapeutic structures
Laying the Groundwork for Liberatory Expressive Arts Research: A Queer Review
Get PDFThe goal of this thesis was to reveal the interconnectedness of disparate discourse across diverse disciplines and locate it within one queer domain. The intersection of (expressive) art and (community/participatory) action is a space within which queer collaboration can take place. It is a space that can accommodate and energize non-normative idea generation and exchange which can mobilize queer resistance to create societal change (Fernández & Fine, 2024; Rutten, 2016). By engaging with interdisciplinary literature and situating conceptual frameworks in dialogue this review provides a foundation for liberatory expressive arts research (LExAR) and practice. Key themes include: centering queer and trans (QT) and Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), co-constructing knowledge, amplifying counter-narratives, storytelling as queer archive, destabilizing binaries in representation and inquiry, unpacking the role of queer subjectivity as evidence, social justice and liberation, deconstructing dominant narrative. This review lays the groundwork for future inquiry in and liberation through expressive arts therapy (ExAT) research and practice as both queer method and queer archive. It is a call to action for creative arts therapy (CAT) and ExAT scholars and practitioners everywhere
Dance/Movement Therapy and Attachment in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit- Critical Literature Review
Get PDFDance/movement therapy, out of all of the expressive arts therapy modalities, is most often used in relation to attachment because of its embodiment. While dance/movement therapy has been researched in relation to attachment, is it hard to find literature about dance/movement therapy supporting attachment in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This critical literature review explored and examined the question of how dance/movement therapy can support parents’ wellbeing and its influence on the attachment with their infants in the NICU. A search for literature on the topic happened mostly online on several bibliographic databases. The majority of the sources were written after 2000, most of them within the last few years. The literature provided research about attachment itself. There are also plenty of resources about dance/movement therapy in many clinical settings, including work with infants and children. However, literature lacked the connection between dance/movement therapy, attachment theory and the NICU. The goal of the thesis was to attempt bridging those gaps as it is proven that dance/movement therapy is the most effective of all expressive arts therapy modalities at work with attachment (Malchodi, 2014). Therefore the hope is that the work presented in the thesis will come to benefit the infants in the NICU and their families as well as the dance/movement therapy field in order to help more families