Objective: This study examines patients' pictorial representations of their chronic pain, alongside their accounts of those images, in order to help our understanding of their lived experience of the condition. Method:The sample comprises seven women in middle adulthood from southern England. They began by drawing what their pain felt like and were then interviewed about their portrayals. The interviews were analyzed with interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results:The participants produce strong, vivid, abstract pictures. In many of the pictures, the pain is objectified as punitive and sinister. This is enhanced through the use of stark colours of red and black. Paintings also often have a temporal element, showing either the movement from self before pain to self since the pain had started, or pointing to aspirations for the possible relief of pain in the future. The analysis of the images is grounded in the participants' accounts of them. Conclusion:The images and accounts provide a powerful insight into the internal world of the pain sufferer and the subjective experience of chronic pain. We link this work to other attempts to represent patients' pain and point to the particular contribution our work makes. We make some suggestions for subsequent research following on from what is presented here and we also argue that the methodology outlined in the paper offers considerable potential for research on other health conditions. We know of no previously published IPA work on pain which elicits artwork from participants but it was done as part of an IPA study on addiction (Shinebourne & Smith, 2011). The aim of this study is to examine how patients represent their pain pictorially, how they describe those pictures and how they then use them as a springboard for further reflection on their pain experience. MethodThe first author is a health/counselling psychologist, with five years' post qualification experience delivering pain management programmes. The second author is an academic psychologist with extensive experience of qualitative research, including work on living with chronic pain. The third author is an art therapist in the National Health Service. ParticipantsIPA works with small purposive homogeneous samples. This allows for the microanalysis of psychological convergence and divergence in what is a relatively homogeneous group, in terms of obvious demographic and other variables. Our sample comprised seven White-British women in middle adulthood (aged 36-52) recently referred to a community PICTORIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF CHRONIC PAIN 6 pain management service in southern England. Almost all participants presented with complex cases and had multiple sources of pain. On average they had had pain for 12 years, and all had had it for at least 6 years. Most had a history of unsuccessful medical investigations. Only one, Fran, had prior exposure to any 'pain self-management' approaches before attending this pain management clinic. See Table 1 for participant details. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^...

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This study aims to answer the question, 'How do arts psychotherapists describe their practice in sessions with clients who have severe mental illness?' The authors explore the use of personal construct psychology (PCP) methods to gather and build consensus about how arts psychotherapists describe in-session therapeutic interventions (constructs) in adult mental health services, working with patients diagnosed with severe mental illnesses. We used PCP techniques to interview seven arts psychotherapists (art, music, drama and dance movement psychotherapists) about in-session constructs relating to clinically significant events. PCP assumes that the interviewee holds personal perspectives and makes decisions based on their system of personal constructs. The results showed that there were overarching categories for the in-session constructs elicited from arts psychotherapists during interviews. These constructs were subjected to an intensive categorising process that produced a final set of 14 bipolar constructs describing 28 alternative therapeutic constructs. The in-session constructs cover a wide range of interventions from empathic attunement to narrative reconstruction.

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The objective of this study was to synthesize literature about arts therapies therapeutic actions and the perceived effect of engaging in arts therapies. Using systematic review methods, data was synthesised from qualitative and mixed method studies that reported on arts therapies treatment for people with a diagnosis of personality disorder (Cluster B). The search yielded 167 records. 32 studies were included in the analysis. Data synthesis was conducted by using extracts from the literature search which were coded and then subject to a thematic analysis and synthesis. The thematic analysis and synthesis resulted in seven overarching themes: (1) Processing interpersonal experiences (2) Processing emotions (3) Developing agency (4) Symbolising (5) Structuring experience (6) Cognitive reappraisal (7) Developing a shared experience. This thematic synthesis provides some evidence that according to the arts therapies literature available regarding patients with a diagnosis of personality disorder, there are thematic similarities in terms of primary areas of therapeutic action and the relationship between the therapeutic action and the perceived effects of engaging in arts therapies. Our findings suggest that literature about in-session therapeutic actions focus mostly on processing interpersonal experiences and the largest frequency of coded excerpts concerning the perceived effect of engaging in arts therapies was in the area of processing emotions.

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Crisis events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can have a devastating effect on communities and the care professionals within them. Over recent years, arts-based interventions have helped in a wide range of crisis situations, being recommended to support the workforce during and after complex crisis but there has been no systematic review of the role of arts-based crisis interventions and whether there are cogent themes regarding practice elements and outcomes. We, therefore, conducted a systematic review to (i) define the arts-based change process used during and after crisis events, and (ii) explore the perceptions of intermediate and long-term mental health benefits of arts-based interventions for professionals in caring roles. Our search yielded six studies (all qualitative). All data were thematically aggregated and meta-synthesized, revealing seven practice elements (a safe place, focusing on strengths and protective factors, developing psychosocial competencies to support peers, emotional expression and processing, identifying and naming the impact of the crisis, using an integrative creative approach, and cultural and organizational sensitivity) applied across all six studies, as well as a range of intermediate and long-term benefits shared common features (adapting, growing, and recovering; using the community as a healing resource; reducing or preventing symptoms of stress or trauma reactions, psychophysiological homeostasis). The ways in which these studies were designed independently from one another and yet used the same practice elements in their crisis interventions indicates that there is comparability about how and why the arts-based practice elements are being used and to what effect. Our findings provide a sound basis and meaningful parameters for future research incorporating quantitative and qualitative approaches to firmly establish the effectiveness of art-based interventions, and how arts can support cultural sensitivity, acceptability and indicated outcomes, particularly those relating to stress and trauma during or following a crisis.

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