• Cambridge Scholars Publishing

    "[On the Path to Health, Wellbeing, and Fulfilment: To Your Health] explores health from a variety of perspectives. Interpreting scientific studies and communicating the findings in an easy to understand way is a gift that keeps on giving."

    - Dr Beth Frates, Clinical Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Arts, Health and Wellbeing: A Theoretical Inquiry for Practice

This book brings together leading UK researchers in the field of arts and health, including creative arts therapies. The chapters are based on presentations originally given at a UK seminar series on scholarship and research on connections between the creative arts, health and wellbeing, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

It will be of interest to anyone practising or researching arts and health, in both hospitals and community settings. Because of the nature of the work, the volume is cross-disciplinary in theory and multi-disciplinary in practice. As such, it will appeal to a cross-section of practitioners and thinkers.

Research in the field of arts, health and wellbeing has developed considerably in recent years, and in the dialogue of this book some of the big questions for the agenda are addressed.


Theo Stickley has worked at the University of Nottingham, UK, for 17 years, having previously trained in mental health nursing and counselling. He has edited five books, written 15 book chapters and published 76 peer-reviewed and 26 non-peer reviewed journal articles. In recent years, his research has exclusively focused upon the methods and practices of how the arts are used to promote mental health. He is a qualitative researcher, and his edited book Qualitative Research in Arts and Mental Health makes a unique contribution to this valuable subject.

Stephen Clift is Professor of Health Education in the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, and Director of the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health. He is also Professorial Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and has led on developments within the Society related to creative arts and health. His current interests relate to arts and heath and particularly the potential value of group singing for health and wellbeing. He is one of the founding editors of the journal Arts & Health: An international journal for research, policy and practice, and is Chair of the recently established RSPH Special Interest Group for Arts, Health and Wellbeing. He is also co-editor, with Professor Paul Camic, of the Oxford Public Health Textbook on Creative Arts, Health and Wellbeing.

“Arts and health has developed over the last thirty years to the point at which it can make a profound impact on the way we think about and deliver healthcare. This book contributes abundantly to our understanding of both theory and practice. I commend anyone with an enquiring mind to venture into these pages.”
—Rt Hon Lord Howarth of Newport, Minister for the Arts, 1998-2001

“As developments in the arts and health field continue to gather momentum, this is a timely book. What has previously been missing to help us all make the case for this work is a critical mass of evidence bringing research and practice together. With such wide-ranging coverage of the field in this book, from the impact of the arts in mental health and chronic pain to community-based activity through arts therapy and considerations around making the economic case, the text will be an essential reference book for [those] working in arts in health across public health, as well as primary and secondary health contexts.”
—Nicola Crane, Programme Director, Guy's and St Thomas’ Charity, UK

“This book highlights both the diversity and increasing knowledge and evidence base for arts and health practice, laying the ground for the arts as a mainstay in improving health and wellbeing.”
—Shirley Cramer CBE, Chief Executive, Royal Society for Public Health

Susan Hogan

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-4438-9136-3

ISBN13: 978-1-4438-9136-3

Release Date: 8th June 2017

Pages: 245

Price: £61.99

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