Therapeutic functions of humour in group art therapy with war veterans

Assessing the potential use of art therapy in the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence Department of Community Mental Health

“…Combat Stress art therapy department in consultation with Kings College London has produced research that evidences the benefits of art therapy with veterans who have PTSD (Lobban, 2017). There are a number of published research papers studying military personnel who enrolled in art therapy programmes in the US and Russia supporting the hypothesis that art therapy improves the health and wellbeing of those who are currently serving or, have served in the military (Alexander, 2015;Campbell et al, 2016;Collie et al, 2006;Jones et al, 2017;Kopytin & Lebedev, 2015;Malchiodi, 2016;Salmon & Gerber, 1999;Walker et al, 2016Walker et al, , 2017. A study in Israel hypothesised that stressors for women in the IDF were not the same as their male counterparts (Harel-Shalev et al, 2017).…”

“…Art therapy research with military personnel is also conducted in other countries. Kopytin and Lebedev (2015) conducted a study in St Petersburg, Russia with male soldiers who had seen service in combat areas both within Russia and in other global locations. The research examined the effects of humour in art in the course of an interactive art therapy group.…”

“…The particular type of military banter/humour can make it difficult for service personnel and veterans to interact with those unused to the military environment (Busuttil, 2017). Kopytin and Lebedev (2015) highlight the importance of understanding the unspoken culture and language that forms the character and identity of those who serve in the military.…”

Understanding how humour enables contact in music therapy relationships with persons living with dementia: A phenomenological arts-based reflexive study

“…For example, Pendzik and Raviv (2011), along with Grinberg et al (2012), have used role theory in dramatherapy to explore therapeutic clowning in hospital contexts. Added to this, Kopytin and Lebedev (2013;2015) investigated the therapeutic functions of humour in art therapy groups with war veterans. In addition, clowning in healthcare and/or therapeutic settings, specifically with persons living with dementia, has increasingly attracted research focus over the past ten years (Goodenough et al, 2012;Kontos et al, 2017;Low et al, 2013).…”

Editorial

“…Alison Smith provides a literature review of art therapy with veterans, adding to the work published in IJAT: Inscape by Kopytin and Lebedev (2015) and in the previous issue of IJAT: Inscape by Loban (2016). The area of art therapy with people who have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or with war veterans appears to continue to grow as an area of study.…”