Description
Book SynopsisCreating Care: Art and Medicine in US Hospitals is an ethnographic study of the creative, expressive, and art-making activities occurring in hospitals across the United States. Marlaine Figueroa Gray explores how art programming intersects with medical care in US hospitals, sharing the insights of those who facilitate, participate, and support these creative activities as well as the objectives, values, and functions of these offerings. Gray illustrates how hospital creative arts programs model care that includes both those in need of healing and those who heal.
Trade ReviewIn contemporary medicine, the power of art and poetry to heal has only recently become a subject of scholarly investigation. Marlaine Figueroa Gray’s masterful study, Creating Medicine, breaks new ground in exploring the concept and practice of art therapy in American hospitals. Her book is a seminal work in understanding the therapeutic value of creative art.
-- Jack Coulehan, Stony Brook University, author of The Talking Cure
Creating Medicine offers an insightful and rich exploration of the relationship between the arts and medicine from an anthropological perspective. It's a valuable contribution to the arts in health field, and a genuine pleasure to read.
-- Patricia Dewey Lambert, University of Oregon and Chair of the Professionalization Committee, National Organization for Arts in Health
Table of ContentsChapter 1: Creative Practices, Care Practices
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Art and Medicine
Chapter 3: Proving Art Works: Evidence and Values Underlying Creative Arts Activities
Chapter 4: “It’s Many Different Things”: Creative Arts Activities as Moments of Disruption
Chapter 5: The Root of Healing: Community and Connection
Chapter 6: Accompaniment and Legacy: Creative Activities at and Through the End of Life
