The Creative Artists Support Group: A Therapeutic Environment to Promote Creativity and Mental Health

Elliot Benjamin

Authors

Elliot Benjamin

Keywords:

creative artists support group, person-centered psychotherapy, group facilitation, auto ethnographic research

Abstract

In a study with N = 204 participants, artists (painters) demonstrated significantly higher levels of the trait of Engagement with Beauty than non-artists (medium effect size). Artists also showed significantly higher levels of trait Happiness than non-artists (small effect size). There appear to be no published studies comparing artists' and non-artists' levels of the trait of Engagement with Beauty nor trait Happiness. There was no difference in levels of engaging with moral beauty between artists and non-artists; but artists scored significantly higher on engagement with natural beauty (medium effect size), and engagement with artistic beauty (large effect size). The correlations between Engagement with Beauty and trait Happiness, and with Openness, were both positive and significant. However, artists showed no relationship between Openness and Happiness, whereas nonartists did; and the correlation between Engagement with Beauty and Happiness remained significant when controlling for Openness.

Downloads

How to Cite

The Creative Artists Support Group: A Therapeutic Environment to Promote Creativity and Mental Health. (2017). Global Journal of Human-Social Science, 17(A2), 1-11. https://socialscienceresearch.org/index.php/GJHSS/article/view/2199

Download Citation

References

Elliot Benjamin (2008) Art and Mental Disturbance. 48(1), 61-88.

Elliot Benjamin (2013) The creative artist support group: a case study. 13(3), 142-145.

E Benjamin (2014) The creative artists support group. 13(3), 142-145.

Elliot Benjamin (2014) Transpersonal Psychology and an Agnostic Experiential Exploration of Mediumship and the Ostensible Phenomenon of Life after Death. 34(1-2), 34-44.

E Benjamin (2014) The creative artist, mental disturbance, and mental health: A narrative, Auto ethnographic case study of one year in the life of my son the struggling actor. 1(1), 231-238.

E Benjamin (2015) The creative artists support group: A follow-up report. 2(4), 869-871.

Elliot Benjamin (2015) Transpersonal Psychology and an Agnostic Experiential Exploration of Mediumship and the Ostensible Phenomenon of Life after Death. 34(1-2), 34-44.

E Benjamin (2016) A college psychology teacher's experience of cell phone addiction in the classroom: Auto ethnographic reflections. 16(7), 7-17.

S Bradborn (2010) Creative arts in group work.

D Burkus, J Tokien, C Lewis (2016) How your friends affect your creative work.

J Cameron (1992) The artist's way. A spiritual path to higher creativity.

R Chang (2008) Auto ethnography as method.

C Ellis (2007) Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics in research with intimate others. 13, 3-29.

C Ellis (2009) Revision: Auto ethnographic reflections of life and work.

D Grant (2011) rights-groups-celebrate-the-extension-of-the-child-support-grant-to-all-those-born-in-1994-mar-16-2010.

John Mazzeo (2013) :Qualitative Inquiry and the Conservative Challenge. Norman K. Denzin, Michael D. Giardina (eds.). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2006. xxxi+309 pp. (Cloth US$65.00; Paper US$29.95) Ethical Futures in Qualitative Research: Decolonizing the Politics of Knowledge. Norman K. Denzin, Michael D. Giardina (eds.). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007. 256 pp. (Cloth US$65.00; Paper US$29.95). 19(2), 202-204.

C Lapin (2016) CREATIVE ACTIVITIES IN GROUP THERAPY. 11-23.

E Maisel (2012) Your artist support group.

Abraham Maslow (1962) Toward a psychology of being..

W Miller, S Rollnick (2013) Motivational interviewing: Helping people change.

C Rogers (1961) On becoming a person.

C Rogers (1965) Rogers, Carl R. Client-centered therapy. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1951, pp. 560. $4.00. 7(3), 294-295.

C Rogers (1973) Carl Rogers on encounter groups.

(2015) The handbook of humanistic psychology: Theory, research, and practice.

C Wagner, K Ingersoll (2013) Motivational Interviewing in Groups.

A Zuckoff (2015) Finding your way to change: How the power of Motivational Interviewing can reveal what you want and help you get there.