The Difficult Return: the arts and social health of returning military personnel

Publication date: Available online 13 December 2018Source: The Arts in PsychotherapyAuthor(s): Michael BalfourAbstractThere is a rich history of arts, mental health and military work dating back to the First World War. The article details an arts-based four-year research project focussed on work with returning military personnel and their families dealing with mental health issues. The Difficult Return, funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant, consisted of three distinct interventions: an online mental health awareness campaign; a documentary-play designed to motivate military audience to seek help; and a ten-day intensive psychotherapeutic program utilising enactments. The paper will outline key concepts used, methods, approach and the implications for further research. In the paper, I argue that arts-based mental health projects need to combine multi-disciplinary approaches that embrace complex paradigms, and that a variety of integrated arts approaches may be efficacious in building communities of interest, that in turn can interact, contribute and collaborate together to build good mental health.
Source: Arts in Psychotherapy - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research