Library Instruction,Intervention and Immersion: A 5-Year Study of Religion and the Arts

A religion faculty member approached the author after he gave a presentation to the faculty at Waldorf College on integrated library instruction. She expressed disappointment at her students’ scholarly performance on a major research paper she assigns every semester. The ensuing discussion resulted in a campus collaboration among the author, the faculty member, the campus writing center, and the academic achievement center. This article reports on the results of a five-year study on intervention and immersion of library instruction for the class Religion and the Arts at a small liberal arts college.     

Finding Creativity in an Artificial Artist

Creativity is an important component of human intelligence, and imbuing artificially intelligent systems with creativity is an interesting challenge. In particular, it is difficult to quantify (or even qualify) creativity. Recently, it has been suggested that conditions for attributing creativity to a system include: appreciation, imagination, and skill. We demonstrate and describe an original computer system (called DARCI) that is designed to produce images through creative means. We present methods for evaluating DARCI and other artificially creative systems with respect to appreciation, imagination, and skill, and use these methods to show that DARCI is arguably a creative system.     

Three Views of Artful Practice in Psychosocial Occupational Therapy

This qualitative study explored artfulness in the psychosocial practice of three occupational therapists through in-depth observation and interviews. Analysis focused on the therapist-client relationship, activity use, self-reflection, and the change process. Each therapist established an interpersonal connection while offering meaningful, engaging activities. In addition, each brought a distinct and unique personal view to treatment. Findings suggest that the art of practice in occupational therapy is constructed by the therapist's integrated balance of substance, form, and vision to achieve a coherent whole, which positively influences the personal views of substance, form, and vision in clients.     

Avoiding unbearable pain

This presentation describes the way in which defence mechanisms and resistance manifested themselves in the analysis of a man with a narcissistic personality disorder. In the course of the analysis, there were changes in the forms taken by the defence and the resistance, signalling important genetic and dynamic conditions in his life. Both represented desperate attempts to avoid the unbearably painful feelings and affects which he had experienced in his childhood, and bore witness to early and primitive defence mechanisms such as denial, splitting and projective identification. The defence can also be seen as an expression of an unconscious fear of being re-traumatised. The idealisation of the analyst in the first years of the analysis can therefore be understood as a precondition for entering into this kind of process. It also represented a defence against aggressive and homosexual feelings in the transference which first became clear during the final phase of the analysis and could then be worked through. At this point, the analyst's reactions to his own unconscious countertransference were of help in understanding what was actually going on. This analysis may also suggest that defects and trauma in the earliest years may be conducive to alexithymia, deficient contact between feelings and words, linked to the risk of developing serious psychosomatic illnesses. This may be a consequence of the fact that the child's feelings and affects were neither accepted, understood nor affirmed in words, or they may even have been met with rejection or ridicule. A connection between narcissistic personality disorders and alexithymia can possibly be seen here.     

Community as Outsider Witness: Utilising Community Members in the Reconstitution of Problem-Saturated Identities

This study explored community members' ability to enlist discourses affirming of psychiatric patients' quest for generative identities. The participants were members of the public who attended an exhibition of psychiatric patients' artwork (n = 7, age range 18–55). A Foucauldian discourse analysis was used to analyse the research interviews. Results revealed that the majority of community members used dominant cultural discourses to speak about psychiatric patient-artists. These discourses conferred a problem-saturated identity on to psychiatric patients. We conclude that community members can be recruited as outsider witnesses to support psychiatric patients' search for generative identities, provided community members resist discourses that produce problem-saturated identity conclusions.     

Gunther von Hagens' BODY WORLDS: Selling Beautiful Education

In the BODY WORLDS exhibitions currently touring the United States, Gunther von Hagens displays human cadavers preserved through plastination. Whole bodies are playfully posed and exposed to educate the public. However, the educational aims are ambiguous, and some aspects of the exhibit violate human dignity. In particular, the signature cards attached to the whole-body plastinates that bear the title, the signature of Gunther von Hagens, and the date of creation mark the plastinates as artwork and von Hagens as the artist in a gesture that strips the personal dignity from the donors. I conclude that the educational use of cadavers is compatible with respect for dignity if: 1) the utility of such use is great enough; 2) there are no other ways of achieving these ends; and 3) every effort is made to honor the dignity of the donors.     

Turning to art as a positive way of living with cancer: A qualitative study of personal motives and contextual influences

Why do some women turn to creative art-making after a diagnosis of cancer? Eleven women provided qualitative accounts that were analysed following guidelines for interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Some described taking up artistic leisure activities initially in order to manage emotional distress. Others emphasized their need for positive well-being, taking up art to experience achievement and satisfaction, to regain a positive identity, and to normalize family dynamics in the context of living with cancer. Participants’ turn to art-making was facilitated by biographical and contextual factors, including pre-existing craft skills, long-standing personal values and coping philosophies, family role models for managing adversity, and the supportive encouragement of family and friends. Other research has acknowledged that positive lifestyle change and posttraumatic growth can occur after a cancer diagnosis, and this study reveals a multi-faceted process. The findings suggest a need for further research into the experiences that facilitate positive lifestyle change and subjective well-being among people who are living with cancer.