Susan Hogan

Feminist approaches to art therapy

This text provides a survey of womens issues within art therapy. The contributors explore: women and mental health; the interaction between popular culture and the representation of women in psychiatric discourse; and the socio-political dimensions of womens lives. Case studies cover a selection of topics including assertiveness, empowerment, sexuality and childbirth, as well as issues around class, race and age.

Routes to Interiorities: Art Therapy and Knowing in Anthropology

In this article we explore the relationship between feminist art therapy and anthropology. We suggest that there is a series of congruities between a feminist approach to art therapy and strands of contemporary anthropological practice concerned with understanding other peoples interior thoughts and the potential of art to make critical interventions. To examine these issues we position feminist art therapy approaches at an interface between existing explorations that have created intersections between anthropology and both arts and therapeutic practices. In this context we will suggest that the application of the methodologies developed in feminist art therapy can combine the potential suggested by both of these approaches, to offer anthropologists routes to understanding interiorities and interventions in conventional narrative forms of representation.

Dealing with Complexity in Research Processes and Findings: How Do Older Women Negotiate and Challenge Images of Aging?

The Representing Self—Representing Ageing initiative has been funded by the ESRC as part of the New Dynamics of Ageing cross-council research program. It has consisted of four projects with older women using visual research methods and participatory approaches to enable women to articulate their experiences of aging and to create alternative images of aging. Complex research processes were utilized. Innovative methods included the use of art elicitation, photo diaries, film booths, and phototherapy.

The art therapy continuum: A useful tool for envisaging the diversity of practice in British art therapy

Abstract This paper aims to provide a comprehensible and accessible overview of British art therapy practice. It is a ‘snap-shot’ of the main styles of art therapy. It presents an outline of theory in the form of a continuum which illustrates the range of art therapy practice that is available in Britain today. The motivation for the development of the continuum is to assist in providing some clarity to a situation which, at first sight, particularly to training therapists, but also to art therapists in general, seems extremely confusing. The continuum is a fluid way of conceptualising art therapy practice; it depicts practitioners as potentially not locked into a particular way of working, though some people may well only work in one way because of personal preferences, and particular aptitudes.

Intersections and inroads: Art therapy's contribution to visual methods

Abstract This paper is written in the belief that art therapists will be interested to hear about contemporary developments within the social sciences (especially in anthropology and ethnography) that may contribute both to the development of art therapy and to the synthesis of the two practices.

Arts, health & wellbeing: reflections on a national seminar series and building a UK research network

Abstract An account is provided of a UK national seminar series on Arts, Health and Wellbeing funded by the Economic and Social Research Council during 2012–13. Four seminars were organised addressing current issues and challenges facing the field. Details of the programme and its outputs are available online. A central concern of the seminar programme was to provide a foundation for creating a UK national network for researchers in the field to help promote evidence-based policy and practice. With funding from Lankelly Chase Foundation, and the support of the Royal Society for Public Health, a Special interest Group for Arts, Health and Wellbeing was launched in 2015.

Ways in which photographic and other images are used in research: An introductory overview

Abstract Sociologists and anthropologists are increasingly interested in using visual techniques in their work as researchers. This article gives an introductory overview of this field and highlights developments taking place in terms of how the arts are actually being used. The article then moves on to think about what role there might be for art therapists to contribute to this developing field. Finally, the article goes on to look at potential tensions and benefits. This article is intended as the first of a two-part exploration of this subject. The second piece of writing will elucidate the application of these ideas to clinical practice in further depth.

Peripheries and borders: Pushing the boundaries of visual research

Abstract In my last paper for Inscape, ‘Ways in Which Photographic and Other Images are Used in Research: An Introductory Overview’ (July, 2012), I summarised the ways in which the arts are being used by social scientists. In this paper I look at less mainstream developments which are nevertheless of interest. In particular, I outline Iain Edgars idea of ‘imagework’, which is the use of creative visualisation within research processes (although much of what he does is rather akin to some forms of art therapy). Probably less well documented and explored is the interesting borderline between social science research and personal therapy represented by both social art therapy and phototherapy, both of which will be explored in further detail. This paper is then contextualised with reference to other recent papers discussing the potential contribution of art therapy to social science, psychological and ethnographic research projects.

Images of Broomhall, Sheffield: Urban Violence, and Using the Arts as a Research Aid

This article is a walking interview in an urban area of Sheffield, in which there has been considerable violence between Somali and Afro-Caribbean males in 2009. Photographs were taken at the significant stopping-points. The article elucidates how a short walk can reveal local issues and concerns. There is also a parallel discussion of the usefulness of visual methods and walking interviews which is contained within endnotes, along with further information.

The tyranny of expectations of post-natal delight: gendered happiness

Abstract This article explores the contested nature of childbirth practices with a historical perspective. The article discusses the modern medical/interventionist model of birth now predominant in the UK and examines the consequences of prevailing norms for women. It includes some reflections on the regulation of pregnancy and the transition to motherhood and notes some counter-cultural movements such as ‘free-birthing’.