The Routledge Companion to Health Humanities
Astles, Cariad, Tsaplina, Marina
Abstract
Creative practitioners, referred to as creatives in this chapter, include visual artists, musicians, theatre directors and designers, writers and poets. These practitioners regularly engage with health care training and delivery e.g. by participating in educational programmes for nurses and doctors and enhancing the aesthetics and ambience in clinical environments. This chapter considers what the health humanities have to offer creatives. I suggest that health humanities can play a greater role in the training and practice of creatives, offering individual opportunities as well as wider benefits to the community. The reciprocal benefits of creativity and health are considered historically using visual arts and mental health as an example, and within the framework of co-creative practice.