Introduction
The importance of creative expression to healthy human development and recovery from mental distress is well established across cultures. For people who have mental health problems, the arts therapies have specifically been developed to allow people to tap into their inner, creative resources while exploring personal issues in a safe, contained space with a trained arts therapist and a view to psychological change.
In the last two decades much interest has also been generated in the arts-in-health initiatives where engagement in the creative process per se is seen to have therapeutic value. This engagement is seen to promote general well-being including mental health. Indications from international, UK and Scottish research are that many people with mental health problems find the arts therapies helpful, either on their own or as part of a range of therapies, which may include medication and talking therapies.
People who experience the arts therapies have found that they provide a sense of choice and control compared to medication or talking therapies.
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The Arts Therapies - (Art, Dance Movement, Drama and Music Therapy) - have their origins in early twentieth century psychiatry and its discovery of the unconscious. Some psychiatrists perceived that art tapped into unconscious processes and began to use it as a tool in their work. By the period around the Second World War, arts practitioners themselves and other professionals were exploring the potential of the arts in a different way. The work they did in hospitals showed that the process of making art, or drama, or music, was experienced by patients as healing and restorative. The 1960s and 1970s saw a period of developing into a profession with the establishment of professional associations and training courses.
The training of Arts Therapists requires a first degree (usually in one of the arts); followed by a post-graduate training which has a strong psychological component. In 1999, the professions of Art, Drama and Music Therapy became State Registered.
Dance Movement Therapy aims to achieve that status by 2004. State Registration means that the Arts Therapies are among the Professions Allied to Medicine and are a legitimate resource of treatment for those with mental health problems, learning disability or other impairment, such as a sensory impairment. Arts Therapists in the UK work in a variety of settings and across the age and need spectrum. Work settings include: hospitals (in and outpatient), community mental health teams, social work, prisons, the voluntary and private sectors, and schools. (Although most arts therapies services are based within a hospital or institutional setting).
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