Peter Senior and Jonathan Croall
1993

£8.95 + p&p, 104 pp
Col and b/w illus
ISBN 978 0 903319 57 7
Buy from Central Books

More and more people are becoming aware that the arts have a special part to play in health care. Bold and imaginative arts projects and programmes in hospitals, hospices and other settings have shown how they can provide for basic human needs such as purpose, dignity, identity, humour, relaxation, creativity, harmony, and meaning.

In Helping to Heal, Peter Senior and Jonathan Croall chart the growth of the ‘arts for health’ movement in the UK over the last twenty years. They highlight the rich variety of activities embracing music, dance, painting, murals, sculpture, theatre, textiles, writing, reminiscence and many other art-forms. But they also look at the many organisational, social, financial and artistic problems that can arise when innovatory work of this kind challenges preconceptions about what and who the arts are for.

Their book, which draws vividly on the experience of artists, arts coordinators, health managers, doctors, nurses and patients, shows vividly how the most successful projects are those which allow patients and staff as much participation as possible. It ends with a Manifesto for Action, aimed at securing everyone’s right to access to the arts regardless of illness, handicap or disability.

Peter Senior, founder of the pioneering Manchester Hospitals’ Arts Project in the early 1970s, is now director of the national body Arts for Health.

Jonathan Croall is a freelance writer and journalist, specialising in the arts, health, education, and the environment.