Art-Based Research

Art therapy and all of the other creative arts therapies have promoted themselves as ways of expressing what cannot be conveyed in conventional language. Why is it that creative arts therapists fail to apply this line of thinking to research? In this exciting and innovative book, Shaun McNiff, one of the field's pioneering educators and authors, breaks new ground in defining and inspiring art-based research. He illustrates how practitioner-researchers can become involved in art-based inquiries during their educational studies and throughout their careers, and shows how new types of research can be created that resonate with the artistic process.Clearly and cogently expressed, the theoretical arguments are illustrated by numerous case examples, and the final part of the book provides a wealth of ideas and thought provoking questions for research.This challenging book will prove invaluable to creative art therapy educators, students, and clinicians who wish to approach artistic inquiry as a way of conducting research. It will also find a receptive audience within the larger research community where there is a rising commitment to expanding the theory and practice of research. Integrating artistic and scientific procedures in many novel ways, this book offers fresh and productive visions of what research can be.

Sean McNiff has written what may be the most important expressive art therapy book of this decade. Art-Based Research presents a long-awaited model for studing the process of art making as therapy - whether it be visual arts, dance, music, or drama. Every page will excite and inspire its readers to think about how to conduct research on art therapy, music therapy, dance therapy and drama therapy as well as intermodal expressive therapy. Too long have the expressive arts therapies focused on the product of sessions with clients. Through this book McNiff has shown us that our knowledge of creative potential inherent to the arts holds the key to how the arts heal and guide us in developing research questions which will help us understand the creative process in therapy. Numerous examples and references from arts therapists will help the novice researcher in developing ideas and inspire the experienced researcher, deepening our understanding of why the arts therapies are powerful tools for healing. This volume will become a standard text in expressive arts therapy training programs throughout the world.

Shaun McNiff PhD, ATR is the Provost and Dean of Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts. An internationally-renowned figure in the creative arts therapies, he has written many critically-acclaimed books including Art as Medicine: Creating a Therapy of the Imagination,Educating the Creative Arts Therapist and Depth Psychology of Art. Dr McNiff has been honoured on many occasions for his pioneering contributions to the creative arts therapy field, and he is the 1997 recipient of the America Art Therapy Association's Honorary Life Member Award.