2410 research outputs found
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Nerf This! Navigating the Accessibility and Inclusivity of Video Games Through Expressive Arts Therapies: A Literature Review
Get PDFThis thesis explores the accessibility of video games to populations with disabilities, as well as the inclusivity of video game design, and how the application of expressive arts therapy (ExAT) can benefit in processing and navigating difficult feelings that may arise for a gamer in the video game community. Video games have evolved immensely since first being introduced in the 1970-s and come a long way to accommodate a diverse set of people, yet video games are still marketed toward and for ableist populations. This paper reviews literature on the limitations of video games for the player as well as the toxic nature of the gaming community and the benefits of video games on mental wellbeing. It also examines shared personal experiences with colleagues and my own lived experience of physical and mental limitations with video games. Findings suggest that video games can offer positive benefits on social skills and mental health and if they were more accessible to a wider audience, more individuals would be able to experience these benefits. Video games can be used as a therapeutic tool to explore worlds and landscapes that may otherwise be impossible, offer the player to use their senses to explore, play, and find meaning through use of the ETC, and help connect and reconnect relationships
Social Media and Dance Movement Therapy in the Latinx Community
Get PDFThis capstone thesis is a literature review that combines scholarly articles, personal experiences, and social media content to explore, support, and define dance movement therapy (DMT) and Latinx identity. Social media posts from YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, and Zoom are analyzed to heal and evoke social change. The social media posts analyzed are from celebrities such as America Ferrera, Becky G, Heidi Rojas, and Selena Gomez. Additionally, personal artistic responses are included.Throughout this capstone thesis, there is discussion about dance movement therapy, social media, Latinx community and cultural identity. Themes include a lack of belonging, advocacy for mental health, support for Latinx communities, social media, gender roles, racial harm, and alternative healing practices. There needs to be more research on interventions that meet the needs of Black Ingenious People of Color (BIPOC) communities, social media, and DMT. This capstone thesis is intended to bring awareness to the disparities of the BIPOC communities to expand on education and advocacy. For example, I do this by analyzing how people use social media platforms to discuss topics on marginalization.The conclusion is social media positively impacts mental health within Latinx communities through a variety of interventions
Making Mindfulness More Accessible: A Practical Guide to Trauma-Informed Mindfulness
Get PDFMindfulness is currently embedded in a growing understanding of how trauma permeates and adversely impacts peoples’ physical and psychological well-being. Increased awareness of the prevalence of trauma and its harmful effects has led to renewed interest in mindfulness to help manage the challenges generated by the detrimental effects of trauma.
These effects may draw people to mindfulness and, in turn, may make the benefits of mindfulness out of reach. Mindfulness methods and practice adaptations have been found to help trauma survivors experience the benefits of what the Buddha taught. As a support for those engaging in mindfulness and meditation, this thesis project explores the need for trauma-informed mindfulness practices and offers a practical guide for these adapted practices
Facilitating Attachment through Therapeutic Rapport and Expressive Arts Therapy with Children Experiencing Complex Trauma: A Literature Review
Get PDFThe aim of this capstone is to review the connection between therapeutic alliance and attachment with traumatized children supported by expressive arts in therapy and to the impact on therapeutic outcome. Within the therapeutic encounter is a potent opportunity to develop healthy attachment patterns that bridge into the client’s other relationships in their life. Complex trauma affects children physically and psychologically leaving lifelong consequences of interpersonal challenges. The impetus for study of this topic was curiosity centered on the impact of the therapeutic alliance as it relates to attachment, and therapeutic outcomes. Throughout the course of this literature review, the role of the caregiver became a third person in the therapeutic relationship with a significant role in the child’s ability to experience positive working alliance and growth in therapy. The expressive art’s role as a mediator in the working alliance has been discovered to be an incredible conduit in the context of trauma treatment supporting the development of safety, trust, collaboration, and non-verbal ways of processing trauma. Implications of this validates the hypothesis that the therapeutic alliance is a significant contributor to the outcomes in therapy and the expressive arts have a valuable purpose as the mode of communication in therapy. Posttraumatic growth can occur in the wake of complex trauma. As clinicians, there is a responsibility to tend to the therapeutic alliance and view it as an integral, formative, critical and dynamic aspect of therapy
The Benefits of Existential Art Therapy in the Wake of COVID-19: A Literature Review
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light many complex and existentially rooted questions that are often difficult for individuals to process. In utilizing art along with a supportive and authentic therapeutic relationship, it can be possible to process these questions to help people both thrive and survive during these unprecedented times. The contents of this critical literature review will be examining the potential benefits of the utilization of existentially oriented art therapy with adults in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Explored within are the concepts of existential art therapy as well as the themes that can culminate in its application with clients. Some of the themes examined include freedom, boredom, alienation, isolation, death/non-being, meaninglessness, and identity as it is correlated to independence. This review will also serve to analyze how COVID-19 has impacted others from a Western perspective and looks at how ultimately it has brought forward these existential issues. It also serves to add to the body of knowledge relational to our global experience of living through the pandemic through the lens of existential philosophies. By doing this, it aims to affirm the place creativity and art making has in processing larger anxieties and themes that have appeared to be more prevalent since the start of COVID 19
Do We Belong? Promoting a Sense of Belonging in LGBTQ Youth Through Artistic Community Engagement: A Literature Review
Get PDFThis literature review examines the potential of collaborative art making as a tool to foster a sense of belonging in today’s gender and sexual minority youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ). Living with a unique layer of minority stress, LGBTQ youth are at high risk for developing mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation due to ostracization and rejection from their families and communities. By reviewing the implementation of collaborative art making to bring together other marginalized groups across cultural backgrounds as well as the use of art making with LGBTQ youth for purposes such as political activism, community outreach and self advocacy, it is concluded that collaborative art making could be a useful method to combat thwarted belongingness and diminish resulting mental health issues.
The author is a queer white millenial woman living in north eastern United States of America
The Efforts of K-12 School Principals to Increase Black Student Achievement
Get PDFPolicies typically hold schools accountable for student learning by isolating student groups within the school population to monitor academic achievement. Responsibility for ensuring academic growth and learning for all students often falls heavily upon the K-12 public school principal. This study investigated K-12 school principals’ beliefs, prioritization, and execution of research-based strategies meant to increase Black student achievement as well as their efforts to implement these strategies, including factors and conditions promoting or inhibiting implementation. Three guiding questions informed this study: (1) To what degree do principals believe leading efforts to improve Black student achievement is a priority? (2) What are the ways K-12 school principals of low-performing schools report they lead efforts to increase student achievement? (3) What are the factors and conditions in low-performing schools that K-12 principals say inhibit and promote their efforts to increase achievement for the Black student population? Using a sequential explanatory method, quantitative data were collected from 12 principals through a questionnaire, with five of those principals providing qualitative data in separate follow-up interviews. The study’s 10 findings identified principals’ core beliefs regarding teaching and learning in their contextualized environments. Recommendations included using all data points available to identify the needs of the school, employing culturally relevant strategies to support Black student achievement, and building the capacity of teachers and staff to embark on and engage in cycles of improvement
An Examination of Law Enforcement and Behavioral Health Collaborations in Multidisciplinary Teams (Forensic MDTs)
Get PDFAbstract
Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative case study research was to identify the advantages and disadvantages of collaborations among law enforcement and behavioral health providers on multidisciplinary teams when responding to behavioral health crises. The aims included 1) understand how communication between behavioral health professionals and law enforcement officers impacts their ability to collaborate; 2) uncover how information sharing between both disciplines influences outcomes; 3) describe the perceptions of members of both disciplines regarding levels of case engagement.
Background: Law enforcement is increasingly engaged in behavioral health crises. In addition, there is growing demand for clinical input regarding law enforcement matters. Complex cases appear to exceed the capabilities of an individualized response (law enforcement or behavioral health). As a result, there is a notable growth in the use of multidisciplinary teams, in an effort to engage multiple expertise.
Method: This study was guided by Yin’s work on case study research. Purposive sampling was used, pulling from members of existing multidisciplinary teams. Inclusion criteria included the affiliation as either law enforcement personnel or behavioral health provider.
Results: The themes that emerged from this research are (1) Systemic issues impact MDT success (2) Training and role on the team impacts member practice (3) Successful implementation of MDTs requires intentional work (4) Efficacy of MDTs increases when different expertise is engaged.
Discussion/Conclusion: Through this case study, bounded in space and time, there is greater understanding about the perceptions of multidisciplinary team members regarding law enforcement and behavioral health collaborations when responding to behavioral health crises. An overarching theme regarding a collaborative approach to “dividing and conquering the work” was noted in this study.
Keywords: forensic MDTs, deinstitutionalization, BHP’s, decriminalization, MDTs, diversion, CIT, Co-response, member, user
Preventing Military Suicide Through Dance/Movement Therapy: A Literature Review
Get PDFIn 2022, 328 military members across the active component, Reserve, and National Guard died by suicide, the same as in 2021. In March 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III commissioned the Suicide Prevention Response Independent Review Committee to evaluate existing suicide prevention programs and strategies across the entire Department of Defense. This literature review aims to highlight the use of dance/movement therapy and other expressive therapies within the military, and how the arts have been utilized specifically for suicide prevention. Due to the lack of research on the use of dance/movement therapy, the articles included various studies of other expressive therapy interventions with military personnel, along with studies of the use of dance/movement therapy with depression and trauma. The literature review also examines research on arts-based suicide prevention programs. It was found that though expressive arts therapy for suicide prevention has not been extensively researched, the studies found that most participants experienced a reduction in depressive and traumatic symptoms, along with reduced suicidal ideation. Further research on the use of the arts and expressive arts therapies is warranted as more studies are released on the psychology of suicide
The Dance/Movement Embodied Experience of Grief and Loss Using the Five Senses: Development of a Clinical Method
Get PDFAccording to recent grief and loss research, creative arts therapy can help people heal after losing something or someone. However, there is little research to support the use of dance/movement therapy (DMT) in the adult population. This literature review investigated grief and loss, with a particular emphasis on embodied grief and how and where grief is carried in the physical body. Furthermore, this study of the literature extended on the implementation of DMT and the five senses with adults experiencing embodied grief, as well as body-based techniques to assist these individuals in understanding their loss. This was an essential subject to explore because, unfortunately, conceptualizing the grief process has been widely accepted as a conventional method of grieving. Adult\u27s and young adults\u27 grief processes, how long they should grieve, and how it manifests, have all been misconceptions. Following a thorough analysis of the current literature, the author identified how DMT and the five senses could help those experiencing embodiment grief as well as aid in their overall healing process.
The findings indicate that the body plays an important role in the adult grieving experience. The findings further support the notion that the body should be a part of the therapeutic connection and interventions utilized with this population to aid in the grieving process. As a result of the combination of the body and mindfulness grounding techniques, our findings indicate that dance movement therapy and the five senses could be beneficial interventions for this population