Promoting Health Through Creativity: For professionals in health, arts and education - Softcover

Schmid, Therese

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1861564783 ISBN 13: 9781861564788

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2005

Synopsis

This book is about redefining the value to health of creativity. Creativity derives from biological changes during human evolution as a tool that is needed for survival. The successful use of creativity generates feelings of pleasure and self-esteem that are beneficial to health. In particular, it can help depression. Current values do not give adequate importance to creativity, and the author challenges these values in this book.

The book contains contributed chapters on a theory of creativity as an innate capacity, the therapeutic benefits of creativity, factors that encourage or inhibit creativity and current research on these, and accounts of creativity both as individual projects and as groupwork.

About this title

About the Author

Therese Schmid, Lecturer in Occupational Therapy, School of Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

From the Back Cover

This book is about redefining the health values of creativity. Schmid evidences that creativity is more than the capacity to be inventive or innovative. It is more than the capacity to create great works of art or music or dance. It derives from biological changes during human evolution as a tool that is needed for survival. Everybody has the capacity, and its successful use generates feelings of pleasure and self-esteem that are beneficial to health. Denial of creativity is a serious issue and is imbedded in modern values.

Schmid expresses her views about important strategies for the future. They will require acceptance by health, arts and education professionals that everyday creativity is a resource of high value for health, particularly as it could affect the incidence of depression. She recommends new approaches to promotion policies, education at all levels, and research. Schmid says that such strategies, supported by long-term planning and funding, would assist in the alleviation of a problem that costs the community billions of dollars every year.

 Schmid expresses her views about important strategies for the future. They will require acceptance by health, arts and education professionals that everyday creativity is a resource of high value for health, particularly as it could affect the incidence of depression. She recommends new approaches to promotion policies, education at all levels, and research. Schmid says that such strategies, supported by long-term planning and funding, would assist in the alleviation of a problem that costs the community billions of dollars every year.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1861564783
• ISBN 13: 9781861564788
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 236