The arts and mental health

The arts are good for your mental health.

According to the World Health Organisation, “mental health is … a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community”. But, not everyone is mentally healthy all of the time and according to the WA Department of Health, mental ill-health is the third leading cause of disease burden in Western Australia.

Mental health is a resource of intrinsic value, and as such, the benefits in terms of wellbeing, quality of life, satisfaction, social capital and creativity are in-tangible, and thus is not seen or measured as easily as physical health. Yet, being mentally healthy enables us to experience life as meaningful and to be creative and productive members of society. Furthermore, people who are mentally healthy are happier and generally enjoy better health, better relationships, and are more likely to live longer.

So how do you maintain good mental health? Well, the best answer is that it is a complex task and requires work across individual, community, organisational and societal levels. This is why there is an increasing interest in community, cultural, and yes, you guessed it, arts participation on mental health and wellbeing.

It is well known that community participation is a key element in individual wellbeing and community health. Participation in sport and recreation provides opportunities for socialising, building friendship networks, reducing social isolation and enhancing community wellbeing through the development of relationships, networks and norms that support collective action …and the arts?

Well, Matarasso suggests that the arts stand out from other forms of engagement in terms of who engages in the arts and the quality of that engagement. The arts are thought to be different because they deal with meaning, provide opportunities for self-expression, and offer a way of viewing the world from a different perspective.

Evidence on the specifics of the contribution of arts engagement for mental health and wellbeing is still light on the ground. However, it is widely recognised that mental health and mental illness result from complex combinations of events and conditions that occur in everyday life across all of life’s domains – biological, individual-psychological, social-psychological and structural. People are not just exposed to risk factors, they also get exposed to protective factors, which are just as important in the maintainance of good mental health. Protective factors include social relationships and networks, as well as individual skills and abilities for resisting stress.

My research so far is suggesting that people engage in the arts for entertainment and light relief - time out from a stressful week, perhaps? That it provides opportunities for self-reflection and a means for expressing yourself - skills and abilities for resisting stress? And that its a great opportunity for socialising and networking - strengthening those protective factors even further!

We understand physical health quite easily. If you are physically unfit... give up smoking, don't drink so much, and go do some exercise! But, if mental health is in-tangible and of intrinsic value, then realising your potential and being able to make a contribution is going to take more than going for a walk (though this does help, so it's a great start!). No amount of prescribed drugs is going to permanently change your outlook on life, and you also don't need to be considered 'mentally ill' to not be enjoying life as much as you could.

It is important that promotion, prevention, and early intervention for mental health takes place beyond the traditional mental health, or even health, sectors. In fact, in all the sectors that are a part of, and impact on, people’s daily lives. So next time you write down your thoughts in verse, watch (or play) some live music, visit a gallery, or join a theatre group, good on you for keeping yourself mentally healthy :)

Further reading

* Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. (2000). Promotion, prevention, and early intervention for mental health: A monograph. Canberra: Mental Health and Special Programs Branch, Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care.

* Keleher, H., & Armstrong, R. (2005). Evidence-based mental health promotion resource. Melbourne: Department of Human Services & VicHealth.

* Lehtinen, V., Ozamiz, A., Underwood, L., & Weiss, M. (2005). The intrinsic value of mental health. In H. Herrman, S. Saxena & R. Moodie (Eds.), Promoting Mental Health (pp. 46-58). Geneva: World Health Organisation.

* Matarasso, F. (1997). Use or ornament? The social impact of participation in the arts. Stroud: Comedia.

Survey Results

I recently presented a paper at the 2009 State of Australian Cities (SOAC) Conference in Perth, Western Australia. The presentation was focusing on the quantitative component of my research. The data is still fairly raw at this stage and warrants further analysis. However I thought I'd provide a few statistics for you to ponder upon.

The title of my paper is "Art will save the city": The arts and city vitality, growth, and sustainability. This was inspired by an article by Matarasso in 2000 in which he states that culture is "perhaps the only thing which can save the city" (p1). As I've already mentioned in this blog, and I'm sure many already know, the arts, culture, and creativity have been applauded for their role in the attraction and retention of Florida's 'creative class' and all that this subsequently implies, for their role in the gentrification and revitalisation of neighbourhoods, in establishing, strengthening or reinventing identity and sense of place, building social cohesion, resilience, and wellbeing, etc., etc. The arts also allow us to explore social constructs and the lived experience of place, space, and identity for the residents involved.

This presents a dilemma for regional and rural residents. They often have limited access and opportunity to experience or engage in the arts. There are few statistics on the nature and level of arts activity in regional Western Australia, and research is often limited and narrow in scope.

So one of my aims was to determine the level and nature of artistic activity in regional WA, so here are some of the statitsics...

As expected, the majority of the respondents were female (59%), with 30% male and 11% did not specify their gender. The age range was 13 to 90 years old with an average of 53 years. Overall they were a pretty active bunch with 96% actively engaging in non-arts activities, such as volunteering, sport, gardening, etc. and 87% attended other non-arts related events.

The greatest level of arts engagement was through reading literature, ie novels, poetry and plays of which 76% of the sample engaged in. This was followed by attendance at a gallery, an arts or craft festival, or other places for their design or hertiage value (69%). Almost two thirds (62%) activiely participated in some art form, including creative writing, playing music, dance, or visual arts and 35.5% had attended a performing arts event in the past 12 months.

All of the sample (n=948) engagaed in the arts by listening, watching, or reading it in the media or on the internet. Which would suggest to me that perhaps the attendance figures cited above would be higher if regional and rural audiences had greater access and opportunities to experience the arts.

The common responses for why they attended arts events was as a social opportunity, for entertainment value, and to show their support to the community, the artists and the organisers. One respondent even stated that "we need these kinds of shows to cope with life these days".

Overall I think the levels of arts activity in regional Autralia is quite high. There is definitely patterns and trends starting to emerge from the data which is encouraging as I delve further into the final year of my PhD.

Honours Book

My Honours thesis has been published in paperback and is available from http://www.amazon.com/Participation-Wellbeing-Regional-Western-Australia/dp/3838318315/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256211939&sr=1-1

I haven't received my copy yet, but the original honours thesis is in Edith Cowan University's Mt Lawley Campus Library, Western Australia. I can also email a pdf version for no charge if anyone is interested.

Research, not evaluation

I want to focus on research, not evaluation. Its not that I don't think evaluation is important, quite the opposite. Evaluation is an essential component of the strategic planning process and should be employed by everyone as a matter of good business practice. If a project or programme has specific objectives, including an aim or a vision, then the contribution of that project to those original aims should be evaluated so you can make a judgement about how successful it was.

But what I'm interested in focusing on is research.

According to the University of Western Australia, "research comprises creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humanity, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications... it should have investigation as a primary objective and should have the potential to produce results that are sufficiently general for humanity's stock of knowledge (theoretical and/or practical) to be recognisably increased.”

To achieve this I'm suggesting that a reframing the language is needed. I want to determine the “role” of the arts in rural communities, rather than the “impact” of the arts on particular outcomes.

“ROLE” suggests that the arts forms an integral part in adapting to change and the aim of the researcher is as such to determine how and where the arts fits, among other factors, to contribute towards the social sustainability of rural Australia.

“IMPACT” implies that the arts is something which is external to rural life and should be administered in order to effect change, rather than work with what arts activity is already taking place.

My problem with evaluation masquerading as research is the ability to make generalisations based on those evaluations. All kinds of arts activities are going on all the time. The difficulties in measuring arts impact to date is not just that the arts is so extremely variable, but impacts are difficult to quantify because they are not so easily isolated among the myriad of other influences and interactions that take place whilst engaging in the arts. This includes the various nuances, personalities, environments specific to individual projects.

There is a need to build both a tool kit for evaluating and measuring outcomes for evaluation purposes, as well as building a sound research base on the role or the place of the arts in society.

Wide Open Road

I don't think anyone born in Australia can quite grasp how big and comparatively empty our continent is compared to the rest of the world. More so for those of us born in Western Australia (WA) which is again less fertile, more isolated and less populated than the east coast of Australia.

I am sitting in a rural conference in Maribor, Slovenia. A place where only one third of the population live in towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants, the remainder in smaller towns and villages. But I have a suspicision that their experience of 'rural' is quite different to that we have in WA.

Despite so many people living in small towns, the country still has a population density of almost 100 people per square kilometre. Compare this to WA, which has around 70% of the state population living in the capital city of Perth. A look through the regions of WA reveals that the majority, again, live in regional city centres, not in the rural countryside. Furthermore, compared to Slovenia's population density of 100 people per square kilometre, WA only has 0.08 people per square kilometre.

Australia is big and it's siye is only made more vast by the few people that inhabit it. So considering both size and isolation of the population, how does this impact on AUstralian culture and the arts?

Keep in mind also that, with the exception of Indigenous culture and heritage, exisiting cultural traditions are extremely young compared to the monuments, icons and traditions of much of the rest of the World. As a nation, Australia is only a few hundred years old, yet the constant steady stream of migrants from all over the world has further disrupted the development of a unitied cultural tradition.

Less people, bigger spaces, fewer icons. Yet also greater diversity and freedom to create and invent our own traditions. Not binded by the past, not living in the shadows of a long or mighty history.

For me, this creates a nation with fewer hang ups, proud to be new and different, less formal, easy going and willing to give anything a go.

Australia is a blank canvas, reflecting and absorbing the cultures opf the world to create and define our own sense of self, our own art, our own tradition. Space is a big factor, we have lots of it, this is unique in itself. We have space to try, to experiment, to create. It's fertile ground in terms of culture and the arts, our wide open road.

Drowning in Nouns

How many ways can we possibly say, "we like it, and it's good for us in lots of ways that are good"?

One of the truly fascinating, and sometimes extremely frustrating, parts of this research is the number of different nouns available for me to use to say essentially the same thing in slightly different ways.

Not sure what I mean? The working title of my research when I first started this project was, 'the arts and social wellbeing of Australian rural communities'. Fairly straight forward? Well, yes. However, as with the term 'social capital', I'm getting the feeling that some people are a little over the term 'wellbeing' and prefer instead to use language like, 'resilience', 'inclusive' or 'engagement'. I was doing some reading today and was surprised to find the use of the noun 'community' also coming under some criticism.

A scan of some of my working titles for individual papers includes titles like: 'Determining the role/Measuring the impact/Finding a place for the arts and rural resilience/inclusion/revitalisation/inequity/empowerment'.

Yes, I do realise they are not all the same thing. But the amount of overlap is uncanny. That I can use the one project to generate a list of nouns like the ones above is quite a feat.

While it is useful to make distinctions between these terms, none of them has ever come out on top as the best name for all the applications/use/benefits/outcomes of the arts. I guess then I'm back to where I started.

When I think about the definition of wellbeing, at its most basic it refers to being well. Being well could easily encompass a huge array of nouns that all contribute to the betterment of both individuals and communities (or clusters of people who share a commonality, such as location, interests, etc.). To be socially well, we need to have a certain amount of understanding, tolerance and respect for each other. We also need to feel confident and empowered within ourselves in order to build individual resilience so that we can support each other to make our communities resilience.

I think I'll stick with my original title :)

Australia racist?

I realise I am at risk of stating the obvious, but the experience of Indigenous Australians is very different, and quite far removed from the experience of non-indigenous Australians.

Non-indigenous rural Australians are concerned with maintaining or strengthening sense of community. They do not want the vitality or the viability of their town to be undermined. There seems to be an increased focus on stimulating economic diversity and growth in order to create a more vibrant community.

There is a strong focus on the quality of life that rural living provides. No one wants to leave because they enjoy the rural lifestyle, but they are concerned that fewer people are around, available, or willing to contribute and therefore their quality of life is threatened.

For Indigenous Australians, the threat IS the reality, when compared to their non-indigenous neighbours. I won't bore you with statistics, as these are the obvious, quantifiable signs of inequity. So I'm not here to argue that Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged, this is already a given, I just wanted to point out how this inequity has shown itself in my research.

As I've already mentioned, non-indigenous Australians lament the loss of population because this has meant that there are fewer people to provide services, events and activities for the community than there was before. Rural towns are considered lucky if they can still manage to get enough players for one football team, others are happy that at least the tennis is still going... even though they only play socially now. This is not to mention the contribution of service clubs, charity organisations, action groups, or other community groups. Rural Australia must have been an extremely vibrant place to live when all of these activities were at their peak.

However, even in its hey-day, this experience was NOT the experience of rural Indigenous people. Indigenous Australians were confined to reserves or sent to missions. They now live in established towns or in Indigenous Communities (which are still not recognised as town sites in their own right, despite the presence of schools and other community facilities). The past treatment and injustices experienced by Indigenous Australians has carried on over several generations through drug and alcohol abuse, social problems and racism.

Non-indigenous rural Australians are using the arts in economic development, as a buffer for the changing economic and social make-up of their communities, and to facilitate and make the best use of existing social networks.

Indigenous Australians are using the arts to deal with trauma and address social problems, to reconnect with their culture, re-establish a sense of place and forge a common identity.


I spoke to an Indigenous elder who told me that "Australia is racist":

"Having ATSIC, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the fact that having a Department of Aboriginal Affairs proves that Australia is racist. If we’re all Australians we shouldn’t have one department for one mob. Community welfare means community welfare, community health means community health. There should be no need for Aboriginal Medical Service. It's there because somebody missed out on doing their job. So it’s a two-way thing, the white fella getting lazy and he's racist. So, you have an Aboriginal Legal Service (we shouldn’t), because the ordinary legal service isn’t doing its job... So Australia is built on racism. If we’re all equal, well we be equal."

When I started this research, I wouldn't have thought that the issues could have been so "black and white", but they are. I made a concerted effort to make sure I got an Indigenous perspective on this research, but it wasn't as easy as arranging interviews with non-indigenous representatives. I needed to be flexible with both my time and my approach. I needed to listen to the experience of others. I needed to be extremely conscious of establishing mutual respect and trust, so assumptions weren't made about MY intentions.

Inequity, experienced in any aspect (race, gender, etc.), can be addressed as long as it is first recognised and then ACTIVELY examined. You must be fully aware that relying on previous experience may in fact be perpetuating inequity, therefore you must recognise existing prejudices (including your own), be prepared to be unprepared, in other words, be flexible and keep an open mind.