2410 research outputs found
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“Hey! Whoa.”: Enhancing Dialectical Behavior Therapy with Drama Therapy for Patients on a Short-Term Inpatient Unit and Trauma/Dissociative Inpatient Unit: Development of a Method
Get PDFDialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a widely used treatment approach for many different populations across an array of clinical settings. There is ample supporting evidence on its effectiveness, however there is also emerging literature on the barriers and challenges when engaging with this treatment modality. Drama therapy is an embodied treatment approach that uses theatre processes and techniques to achieve therapeutic goals. The aim of this thesis was to combine drama therapy and DBT into a proposed method to explore the impact of this infusion with clients on two inpatient units: a short-term unit and a trauma/dissociative unit. This method was implemented through created drama therapy-DBT groups, on both units, that address the DBT skills of mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance. The results of this process showed promising outcomes for anxiety management, enhanced confidence and self-acceptance, finding personal connection to the material, and relaxed defenses. This exploration suggests that the incorporation of drama therapy into DBT has the potential to have a positive impact on the noted DBT treatment barriers and challenges, thus making DBT more efficient and effective
How Art Therapy and Energy Work Can Effectively Shift Core Beliefs: A Literature Review
Get PDFCurrent evidenced-based therapeutic frameworks lack an overall involvement of the combined mental, physical, spiritual, and energetic bodies, demonstrating a gap between where healing is and where healing can go. The various new modalities being used in therapy, including bottom-up and somatic approaches, show the body’s innate capability to store, compartmentalize, and connect diverse functions within to various memories, feelings, or sensations. When working with the mental and physical body without understanding the energetic and spiritual body attached to them, there is a missing link in the greater truth of the whole person. This literature review examined the use and innate benefits of art therapy and energy work (reiki and ThetaHealing®), how using them with core beliefs is instrumental in shifting perspective, and how integral art, energy work, and core beliefs are to a person’s overall wellbeing. Significant findings revealed the depth to which core beliefs influence our outlook, symptomology, and therefore experiences, making them vital to the healing process. Findings also revealed how art therapy and energy work in tandem can bypass trauma, defenses, and ego to delicately and safely process that which needs to be released. Recommendations were made on how to implement energy work into an art therapy practice and popular theoretical frameworks. Further research is recommended due to the lack of studies or literature existing on the topic of energy work and art therapy used in therapeutic practice
Empowering Dance Movement Therapy: Implementing a Dance Break Method in Healthcare Systems to Benefit Patients in Eating Disorder Treatment
Get PDFThis thesis aimed to explore how implementing dance/movement therapy can empower effective changes in healthcare systems to benefit patients in eating disorder treatment. While other expressive therapy treatments were utilized, dance/movement therapy treatment was met with resistance because the key elements of moving the body could bolster excessive and compulsive exercise as a secondary eating disorder behavior. A Dance Break intervention worked as a therapeutic method of inquiry to investigate how moving the body could support patients in rediscovering their identities without reinforcing eating disorder behaviors. Data was collected through movement observation analysis, arts-based exploration, and verbal discussion. The results appeared to support a heightened self-awareness and stimulated bodily sensations. There is an opportunity for further research on how a Dance Break intervention may be applied to different socio-cultural populations, and how its flexible and adaptable quality could be included in healthcare systems across the United States
Utilizing Collage to Address Disenfranchised Grief Amongst Older Adults Living with Dementia: A Method
Get PDFGrief is an inevitable part of the human experience as everyone encounters loss across the lifespan. However, some forms of grief go unrecognized or unvalidated leading to the disenfranchisement of the griever’s experience. Existing literature captures numerous experiences and approaches to addressing the grief of families and caretakers living with an individual diagnosed with dementia. However, little literature details the grief experiences of individuals diagnosed with dementia. Grief can go unrecognized amongst those living with dementia as they are often thought to be incapable of grief as a result of their memory loss and shift in cognition. This thesis explored the use of collage interventions to address disenfranchised grief amongst older adults living with dementia. A literature review validated the efficacy of utilizing art therapy in working with dementia and in working with grief and loss. A method was developed to carry out three individual art therapy collage interventions with 5 older adults living with dementia in a memory care community within an assisted living facility in the Greater Boston area. Results demonstrated an increase in positive mood amongst residents, increased self-esteem in the creative process, and appreciation for the space to process loss and mourn
The Value of Craft Art in Exploring Identity, A Critical Review of the Literature
Get PDFCraft has a diverse application history, from making bracelets at summer camp to making clothes for a family. This variety of uses offers a higher opportunity for exposure to this type of art-making. It is crucial to consider familiarity in art-making to implement effective treatment that recognizes client experience and meets them where they are. Expressive arts therapy does not often include craft art. It could be beneficial for the field of expressive therapies to evaluate the therapeutic potential of craft art, given craft art’s cultural and social prominence. This study explores the therapeutic value of craft art within exploring identity, which is crucial in social justice-based practice. In exploring the current literature on craft art, researchers primarily focus on integrating craft art for the tactile experience of creation and stress management. This inquiry explores these prominent research findings and examines the literature involving craft art usage with more specific cultural populations and cultural craft art practice. This more culturally specific literature questioned and explored the overall creative value of craft art in self-expression, community building, and cultural transmission. This examination highlighted that craft art might require a particular skill or mastery to create. However, there is also an opportunity to explore the potential of craft art’s connections to identity through accessibility, engagement in the process of making, perseverance in learning a skill, individual expression/choice despite a specific overall end product, representations of cultural heritage, pride in completion attributing to positive self-esteem, and community building
Movement in Meal Time: A Movement Observation Assessment for Individuals with Eating Disorders
Get PDFThis paper advocates for the use of dance/movement therapy (DMT) as part of treatment for individuals with eating disorders, while also proposing a DMT based method of assessment to be used with clients during meal times. This assessment, based on elements of DMT movement observation techniques, works as a tool to analyze the client’s consumption behavior and level of risk, thus providing insight for treatment planning, goal setting, and themes for dance/movement therapy interventions. The proposed assessment was applied with an at-risk adolescent female during a lunch period in a school setting. The results of the assessment were then further processed and used to inform potential DMT based interventions that might help reduce thoughts and behaviors often associated with eating disorders. The assessment application and review experience highlighted the areas that were effective in evaluating risk and the nature of the participant’s eating behaviors, proving to be helpful in better understanding the participant and their relationship with food. This experience also demonstrated the areas of its limitation and need for refinement to make this assessment even more effective for a wider range of participants and clinical settings. Relevant literature on the intersection of dance/movement therapy and eating disorder populations was explored thus further asserting the need and benefits of DMT based interventions for treatment of eating disorders and informing the development of the proposed assessment. Within this literature review, a variety of topics are examined including DMT treatment interventions, studies on the effects of DMT on body image, depression, and disordered eating, and key dance/movement therapists in this field who have developed universal themes for working with this population
Building the Therapeutic Relationship with Youth Online Through Expressive Arts Therapy, A Literature Review
Get PDFDue to the COVID-19 pandemic, online therapy is now a more permanent part of current therapeutic practice. The therapeutic relationship is also an essential part of mental health services, and while previous research has examined its formation both in-person and online, it has not been investigated thoroughly in its formation with youth in videoconferencing. Expressive arts therapy has also been studied in its relation to therapeutic relationship formation, youth, and videoconferencing, but not in relation to these elements in combination. This study addresses a gap in the literature by examining how expressive arts therapy can be used as a tool to build the therapeutic relationship in videoconferencing. A search of the literature was conducted primarily through the Lesley University Library Online and Google Scholar. Searches of major news outlets acquired current and relevant news articles. Results suggest that expressive arts therapy is an effective way of engaging youth and building the therapeutic relationship in videoconferencing. This study makes recommendations for practice, including development of interpersonal skills and strategies, the use of expressive arts therapy, as well as further education and training for therapists. Additional quantitative study of this topic, on the effectiveness of both further training on the therapeutic relationship in videoconferencing and expressive arts therapy online with youth is recommended
Can Hope Be Primed in Chronic Pain? A Clinical Application of Health Priming
Get PDFABSTRACT
It is recognized that nonintentional, automatic processing shapes physical health and well-being in critical ways. Conditioning––or priming––has been shown to influence attitude, beliefs, agency, behavior, and medical outcomes. Although expectations and beliefs correlate strongly with physical health, research in clinical application is needed, and studies on hope, as related to agency, in chronic pain are rare. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether, in a chronic pain sample (N = 154), hope could be primed via a Pain Neuroscience Educational (PNE) tutorial. A pre- and post-test intervention study consisting of two randomized parallel groups was designed to answer these research questions: What effect does a primed PNE have on hope in a chronic pain sample? Does exposure to a primed PNE affect pain at the present moment? What is the relationship between hope, stress-hardiness, and the perception of pain in this sample? After completing a pain inventory and obtaining baseline measures of hope, pain at the present moment, typical pain throughout the last year, and the trait of stress-hardiness, two parallel groups (n = 122) of chronic pain participants were exposed to either a primed or neutral condition and reassessed for hope and pain. After analyzing results, a third group (n = 32) was recruited and exposed to the primed condition but without the hardiness scale. A significant gain in hope at p = 0.001 was found in all three groups (N = 154), with medium effect sizes (Cohen’s d), p = 0.05. There was no change in pain at the present moment. Statistically significant Pearson’s correlations were found among hope, typical pain, and hardiness, p = 0.05. Broadly, the statistically significant elevation in hope across all groups suggests that unconscious exposure can prime or condition implicit attitudes apart from conscious goal setting, although the mechanism is unclear (i.e., tutorials and/or the Hope scale). By utilizing a novel priming method in a chronic pain sample, this study contributes to the field of health priming and its findings advance the basis for the clinical application of nonconscious methods in health and medicine.
Keywords: Subliminal priming, placebo, hope, agency, stress-hardiness, chronic pai
The Role of Community Music Therapy in Building Social Connections and Reducing Stigma for People with Substance Use Disorders: A Literature Review
Get PDFThis capstone thesis investigates the benefits of Community Music Therapy (CoMT) in creating social connections and reducing stigma for people suffering from substance use disorders. For the purpose of this paper, substance use disorders (SUD), substance use, and addiction are framed as part of an umbrella construct, and they are used interchangeably. Stigma towards drug users is a social phenomenon all over the world. According to Mora-Ríos, Ortega-Ortega, and Medina-Mora (2017) social rejection is more experienced in drug users than any other diagnosable condition. This literature review is theoretically grounded in the notion that substance use disorder stems from biological processes, as suggested by McBride and Peterson (2002). This paper describes the approach of Community Music Therapy (CoMT) as a beneficial form of treatment for SUD. Knight (2018) states that CoMT aims to focus on music-making processes as a form of social inclusion as well as how to overcome boundaries that divide or exclude participants. There are six key discussion topics in this literature review: (1) diagnostic and biological factors of substance use disorders; (2) the prevalence of stigma towards people seeking addiction treatment and barriers to recovery; (3) trauma as it relates to substance use; (4) key concepts of the CoMT approach in building community and reducing stigma; (5) a neurological rationale for utilizing music therapy to address social connectivity; and (6) advocacy for people suffering from substance use disorders. Considerations for this work, which are explored through this critical review of the literature, are found to be applicable and adaptable to the field of music therapy
Exploring the Lived Experience of Disabled Music Therapists: A Literature Review
Get PDFMusic therapy and the mental health field are publicly praised fields dedicated to helping those who are in need of services. Music therapy in particular is especially praised for the work that is done with people with disabilities. Although this work is extensive and important, there is an underlying tone of ableism that runs through the profession. This ableism points to the clients served, but also the therapists who are disabled themselves. This literature review examines the history of disability studies, disability statistics, disability competencies, as well as the lived experience of three different disabled therapists. Far more research is required in this area of the field, however, there is enough research out there to instigate a need for change