Space to create a feeling

Developmental approaches in drama therapy

Chronic illness in children significantly affects their emotional well-being, often leading to feelings of depression. Play therapy, with its recognized potential as a crucial intervention for reducing negative emotions in children, offers hope in the face of such challenges. This study investigates the effects of play therapy on depression levels in children with chronic illnesses. This quasi-experimental study was conducted in 2022 with a pre-and post-test design involving control and intervention groups. The sample comprised 60 children aged 7 to 12 with chronic illnesses, selected from six Children’s Medical Center Hospital departments. Participants were randomly assigned to either an intervention group (n=30) or a control group (n=30). Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire and the Maria Kovacs Children’s Depression Inventory, which includes 27 items. Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 16. The study included 60 participants. There was no significant difference in depression levels between the intervention and control groups before the intervention (P=0.06). However, post-intervention results showed a significant reduction in depression scores in the intervention group compared to the control group (P<0.001). Additionally, the intervention group demonstrated a significant decrease in depression levels after the intervention (P<0.001), while the control group did not show significant changes (P=0.268). The findings indicate that play therapy, with its potential to reduce depression levels in children with chronic illnesses, offers hope. Incorporating play therapy into treatment protocols is recommended to enhance the mental health of these children.

Markmið þessarar rannsóknar er tvíþætt: Annars vegar að skoða félagslegan ávinning söngleikjaþátttöku og mikilvægi söngleikjaforms sem óhefðbundins náms og hins vegar að skoða hvaða áhrif söngleikjaþátttaka hefur á félagskvíða hjá nemendum með frammistöðukvíða. Rannsóknin var eigindleg viðtalsrannsókn þar sem viðtöl voru tekin við unglinga í grunnskóla sem tóku þátt í söngleik. Þá voru dagbókarfærslur rannsakanda einnig hluti af gögnum sem og reynsla hans á vettvangi. Niðurstöður sýna að óhefðbundið nám í söngleiksuppfærslu er mikilvægur vettvangur til að efla félagsfærni nemenda. Jafnframt hefur söngleikjaþátttaka góð áhrif á félagskvíða og eflir samskiptafærni nemenda. Þá sýndu niðurstöðurnar að söngleikur er mikilvægur vettvangur fyrir nemendur til að kynnast og losa um hömlur. Jafnframt hefur þátttakan jákvæð áhrif á félagsfærni og minnkar félagskvíða en margir nemendur upplifðu aukið öryggi í félagslegum samskiptum í gegnum söngleikjaferlið. Niðurstöðurnar eru mikilvægar til að sýna fram á hversu nauðsynlegt er að efla óhefðbundið nám og listgreinar og til að styrkja félagsfærni og sjálfstraust nemenda. Jafnframt skipta þær máli til að hjálpa félagskvíðnum nemendum þar sem félagskvíði byggir meðal annars á félagslegri fullkomnunaráráttu sem lýsir sér helst á þann veg að nemendur eru hræddir við að gera „samskiptamistök“. Söngleikur, þar sem eiga sér stað mikil samskipti, er því gagnlegur jafnt sem krefjandi vettvangur fyrir þá félagskvíðnu.

Hope, meaning and the creative arts therapies in the treatment of AIDS

This introduction presents a brief description of the creative arts therapies: drama therapy, music therapy, art therapy, dance/movement therapy, expressive arts therapy, and poetry/bibliotherapy. Creative arts therapies have been used as therapeutic interventions for millennia. Despite this long history, the general public is not aware that they are available as options for psychotherapy or as potential career options. The book consists of interviews with and essays written by creative arts therapists about their experiences during different stages of their careers. Chapter 1: Getting Started first introduces readers to careers in the arts beyond that of being a professional artist. Then four creative arts therapists (CATs) share what motivated them to go into their respective fields. The chapter ends with an essay encouraging students of diverse backgrounds to consider careers in CATs. Chapter 2: Sticking it Out reveals what studying one of the creative arts therapies would involve. In Chapter 3: Finding Success, five CATs share what their experiences were like as they started their careers. Chapter 4: Getting Ahead offers descriptions of opportunities that often present themselves as CATs enter their mid-careers. Chapter 5: Starting Over shows options that CATs might take beyond their regular career.

The article highlights the relevance of psychological counseling in preschool educational institutions as an essential component in ensuring children’s mental health and harmonious development. In the context of societal and educational changes, as well as the increasing psycho-emotional burden on children, educators, and parents, the need for qualified psychological support is significantly growing. The author views psychological counseling as a systematic professional activity aimed at supporting all participants in the educational process – the child, their family, and educators.The publication analyzes the main objectives of counseling in preschool institutions, including the promotion of children’s emotional well-being, correction of behavioral difficulties, development of social and communication skills, prevention of anxiety, and support during the adaptation process to new environments. The importance of early identification of psycho-emotional disorders and timely response to parents’ or educators’ concerns is emphasized.Special attention is given to the specifics of psychological counseling for preschool- aged children, which necessitates the use of indirect, gentle intervention methods such as play therapy, art therapy, fairy-tale therapy, and projective techniques. All of these approaches aim to create a safe space for the child to express themselves, their feelings, and experiences. At the same time, work with parents and educators focuses on explaining age-related characteristics of children, shaping effective parenting strategies, reducing adult anxiety, and strengthening adult-child interaction.The main forms of counseling in preschool educational institutions are outlined – individual, group, consultative-educational, preventive, corrective-developmental, and family counseling. The importance of collaboration between the psychologist and educators, medical staff, and social services is emphasized in order to ensure a comprehensive approach to addressing the child’s needs.

Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are common in the patients with dementia.Creative arts therapies (CAT) are one of the safe and effective non-pharmacological interventions for BPSD.This paper elaborates on the therapeutic effects of four common CAT,including art therapy,music therapy,dance therapy,and drama therapy,on BPSD.Despite the shortcomings,CAT offer a new gateway for the safe and noninvasive treatment of BPSD.

This article aims to describe how the strategy of reducing uncertainty occurs in the play therapy room. As a method in psychotherapy, a play and creative arts therapist must be able to establish a good relationship with the client so that the client feels safe and comfortable during the therapy process. To establish a safe and comfortable relationship, a process of reducing uncertainty is needed between the therapist and client when communicating in the therapy room. Berger and Calabrese consider that reducing uncertainty will result in self-disclosure which can strengthen the source-receiver relationship in the communication process. After conducting observation in Client ANA’s case for 24 sessions, it is found that in play therapy, the reduction of uncertainty occurred uniquely by using various metaphors chosen by the client independently. In ANA's case, the uncertainty reduction strategy started with an active strategy, followed by simultaneous use of passive and interactive strategies.

Most creative arts therapists in the United States have a minimum of a master’s degree. In this chapter, faculty from five creative arts therapy graduate programs (drama, dance/movement, music, art, and expressive arts therapy) and an alternative trainer for poetry therapy describe what courses and types of internships are required in studying for their discipline. They also share the aptitudes and attitudes they look for in graduate students.

Telehealth-based creative arts therapy: Transforming mental health and rehabilitation care for rural veterans

Social robots are being designed to help support people’s well-being in domestic and public environments. To address increasing incidences of psychological and emotional difficulties such as loneliness, and a shortage of human healthcare workers, we believe that robots will also play a useful role in engaging with people in therapy, on an emotional and creative level, e.g., in music, drama, playing, and art therapy. Here, we focus on the latter case, on an autonomous robot capable of painting with a person. A challenge is that the theoretical foundations are highly complex; we are only just beginning ourselves to understand emotions and creativity in human science, which have been described as highly important challenges in artificial intelligence. To gain insight, we review some of the literature on robots used for therapy and art, potential strategies for interacting, and mechanisms for expressing emotions and creativity. In doing so, we also suggest the usefulness of the responsive art approach as a starting point for art therapy robots, describe a perceived gap between our understanding of emotions in human science and what is currently typically being addressed in engineering studies, and identify some potential ethical pitfalls and solutions for avoiding them. Based on our arguments, we propose a design for an art therapy robot, also discussing a simplified prototype implementation, toward informing future work in the area.

This study aims to describe the development model for Balinese shadow puppet shows in the era of globalization. For nearly thirty years, Balinese shadow puppet performances marked ups and downs of requests from the public to respond to and watch them, especially for traditional performances. For this reason, to restore the Balinese shadow puppets to revival in the era of globalization, young puppeteers try to save them by exploring, preserving, and developing shadow puppet shows by creating a new work called Pakeliran Layar Lebar. The work on Pakeliran Layar Lebar is one of the genres of traditional wayang art that has appeared since 1988 under the encouragement of Prof. Dr. I Made Bandem, who at that time was chairman of the Denpasar Indonesian Art College. Visually, the form of Pakeliran Layar Lebar is very much different from the traditional ones. In its presentation, dance artists, musicians, puppeteers, theatres, narrators, and interpreters supported Pakeliran Layar Lebar with advanced technology such as; lighting, scenery, sound system, computer, LCD, and so on also support. Pakeliran Layar Lebar is classified as a balih-alihan (spectacle) art, so it functions as a medium for education, entertainment, and artistic creativity with an aesthetic nuance.

This interdisciplinary volume introduces new theories and ideas on creativity from the perspectives of science and art. Featuring contributions from leading researchers, theorists and artists working in artificial intelligence, generative art, creative computing, music composition, and cybernetics, the book examines the relationship between computation and creativity from both analytic and practical perspectives. Each contributor describes innovative new ways creativity can be understood through, and inspired by, computers. The book tackles critical philosophical questions and discusses the major issues raised by computational creativity, including: whether a computer can exhibit creativity independently of its creator; what kinds of creativity are possible in light of our knowledge from computational simulation, artificial intelligence, evolutionary theory and information theory; and whether we can begin to automate the evaluation of aesthetics and creativity in silico. These important, often controversial questions are contextualised by current thinking in computational creative arts practice. Leading artistic practitioners discuss their approaches to working creatively with computational systems in a diverse array of media, including music, sound art, visual art, and interactivity. The volume also includes a comprehensive review of computational aesthetic evaluation and judgement research, alongside discussion and insights from pioneering artists working with computation as a creative medium over the last fifty years. A distinguishing feature of this volume is that it explains and grounds new theoretical ideas on creativity through practical applications and creative practice. Computers and Creativity will appeal to theorists, researchers in artificial intelligence, generative and evolutionary computing, practicing artists and musicians, students and any reader generally interested in understanding how computers can impact upon creativity. It bridges concepts from computer science, psychology, neuroscience, visual art, music and philosophy in an accessible way, illustrating how computers are fundamentally changing what we can imagine and create, and how we might shape the creativity of the future. Computers and Creativity will appeal to theorists, researchers in artificial intelligence, generative and evolutionary computing, practicing artists and musicians, students and any reader generally interested in understanding how computers can impact upon creativity. It bridges concepts from computer science, psychology, neuroscience, visual art, music and philosophy in an accessible way, illustrating how computers are fundamentally changing what we can imagine and create, and how we might shape the creativity of the future.

In the 1976 sci-fi film Logan's Run, actor Michael York, relaxing in a fetching caftan after a day hunting ‘Runners’, logs-in to the ‘Circuit’, a de- and re-materialisation technology that allows those seeking sex to select partners. Logan's first candidate, a young man, is passed over with a smile. The second is co-star Jenny Agutter; she is accepted and we join a sexual ride in the future. Online dating sites such as Gaydar® and RSVP® would seem to have a long way to go to achieve that, and Microsoft™ needs some fast apps development to get us there. Against this background, this paper examines some starting points in our fascination with technosex, long before the Internet, in books and magazines, the creative arts and other media and cultural forms. It focuses upon gay men's contribution to this fascination, and looks at the queering of heterosexuality and the part technology has played in that process. Online technologies are examined, particularly in relation to the ‘publicisation’ of sexual life and to shifts in sexual identity and practice related to changing processes of sexual objectification, self-objectification and subjectification. Finally, the transformation of sex into health and healthy sex is discussed.

It is a curious and perhaps surprising observation but the performance as research movement in Australia was most active, and arguably did its most groundbreaking work, nearly 20 years ago. In the late 1980s a shakeup of the higher education sector in Australia saw the amalgamation of smaller Colleges of Advanced Education into a national system of 39 universities and, along with this, grew heightened expectations around research. For many staff of these Colleges of Advanced Education, this was a time of both opportunity and nervousness. Few felt prepared for the research challenges which lay ahead. In the new order academics were to successfully compete for external research funds and build a strong staff and postgraduate research culture. This marked a major shift of priorities, especially for academics in the creative arts, media, and design disciplines whose principal focus had been on professional and vocational training and undergraduate course innovation.