Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the value of approaches to mental health based on creative practice in the humanities and arts, and explore these in relation to the potential contribution to mutual recovery.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is a conceptual analysis and literature review.FindingsRecovery can embrace carers and practitioners as well as sufferers from mental health problems. Divisions tend to exist between those with mental health needs, informal carers and health, social care and education personnel. Mutual recovery is therefore a very useful term because it instigates a more fully social understanding of mental health recovery processes, encompassing diverse actors in the field of mental health. Research demonstrates the importance of arts for “recovery orientated mental health services”, how they provide ways of breaking down social barriers, of expressing and understanding experiences and emotions, and of helping to rebuild identities and communities. Similarly, the humanities can advance the recovery of health and well‐being.Originality/valueThe notion of mutual recovery through creative practice is more than just a set of creative activities which are believed to have benefit. The idea is also a heuristic that can be useful to professionals and family members, as well as individuals with mental health problems themselves. Mutual recovery is perhaps best seen as a relational construct, offering new opportunities to build egalitarian, appreciative and substantively connected communities – resilient communities of mutual hope, compassion and solidarity.
Highlights
This paper discusses how creative practice in the arts and humanities might promote the kinds of connectedness and reciprocity that support ‘mutual recovery’ in terms of mental health and well-being
Mental illness accounts for 19.5 % of all disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), 40% of chronic illness and is the second greatest financial and social burden after cardiovascular disease
The Medical Research Council (2010: 3) strategic report on mental health research notes “low research capacity coupled to the perception that the research questions in this field have been relatively intractable”, which is combined with an ongoing scepticism in some quarters as to the value and effectiveness of exclusively pharmacological approach to mental ill health (Barker and Buchannan-Barker, 2012; Healy, 1999, 2012; Kirsch, 2009)
Summary
This paper discusses how creative practice in the arts and humanities might promote the kinds of connectedness and reciprocity that support ‘mutual recovery’ in terms of mental health and well-being. Our central hypothesis is that creative practice could be a powerful tool for bringing together a range of social actors and communities of practice in the field of mental health, encompassing a diversity of people with mental health needs, informal carers and health, social care and education personnel, to establish and connect communities in a mutual or reciprocal fashion to enhance mental health and well-being. This approach is congruent with a ‘new wave of mutuality’ marked by ‘renewed interest in co-operation’ (Murray, 2012). Such an approach would add a new dimension to the growing field of health humanities (Crawford et al, 2010)
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