Art that Tells the Truth

Creative Methods are a shortcut to what we didn't know we knew. In working from a student's or client's own imagination and psychological material, a person discovers who they are and what they need to expand and move forward. This enriching and inspiring book on creative methods demonstrates the power and effectiveness of the creative approach in guidance and counselling settings. The twenty chapters in this volume focus on the importance and joys of play, creative expression, and imagination in effective learning: as we develop, observe, and interact with our own creations we can arrive at fresh insights by tapping into the wisdom of the unconscious mind. Creative methods often provide a new perspective on difficult emotions and allow us to perceive what they're trying to tell us. Chapter topics include the following: Embodied Theatre Ecology; the Use of Poetry with Clients Recovering from Anorexia; Retirement Life Writing; the Value of Metaphors in Grieving; the Construction of New Narrative Identities in Careers; Dance Movement Psychotherapy as an Approach to Depression; Psychodrama and Philosophy in Learning Self-care by Encountering the "Unknown Other"; Artistic Tools for Psychotherapeutic Work with Children and Youth; Temporal Chair Work; Identity Learning through Paintings; and the ways in which Poetry can Help us Bridge Cultural Divides and Inform Career Learning Practices. This volume will be of value and interest to students, researchers, teachers, professionals, and practitioners of psychology, behavioural sciences, mental health, counselling, and education. The chapters in this book were originally published as special issues in the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling.

Reinekke Lengelle is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Athabasca University, Canada, and a Researcher at The Hague University, The Netherlands. Her book Writing the Self in Bereavement: A Story of Love, Spousal Loss, and Resilience won the Best Book Award for Ethnography in 2021 and the International Qualitative Inquiry Book Award in 2022. Deirdre Hughes is Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, Institute for Employment Research (IER) in Coventry, England. She is an international careers practitioner researcher and senior policy adviser. She led and co-edited an international series of Special Issue Journals on behalf of the British Journal for Guidance and Counselling. In 2012, she was awarded a Queen's Honorary Medal (2012) for her services to lifelong guidance. Liane Hambly is an international career coach, supervisor and educator of career development professionals. She is co-author of the best-selling book Creative Career Coaching, Theory into Practice (2019) and works with organisations worldwide to strengthen the confidence and skills of their practitioners.

Introduction-Art that Tells the Truth: Creative Methods in Guidance and Counselling 1. Embodied Theater Ecology: illuminating the gap through bridging depth psychology's encounter with performative inquiry 2. Is poetry therapy an appropriate intervention for clients recovering from anorexia? A critical review of the literature and client report 3. The warm bathwater of working life slowly ebbing away: retirement stories and writing for therapeutic purposes 4. Enter centre stage, the case study ... 5. Walking in a fairy tale forest in search of a second primitivity with the help of Little Red Riding Hood 6. Cures for the heart: a poetic approach to healing after loss 7. Construction of narrative identity based on paintings 8. Art dialogue methods: phronèsis and its potential for restoring an embodied moral authority in local communities 9. Arts for the blues - a new creative psychological therapy for depression 10. Towards a deeper integration of creative methods in counselling: some thoughts about frameworks for practice 11. Inter-professional learning: initial observations of the art psychotherapy tools used in the post-qualifying postgraduate training in counselling children and young people 12. Career assessment and creativity: potential complementarity or a contradiction in terms? 13. The vocational ID: connecting life design counselling and personality systems interaction theory 14. Use of narratives and collage in the exploration of the self and the meaning of a career 15. Bridging cultural divides with the power of poetry: an educator's reflection 16. Dialogical Temporal Chair Technique 17. Innovative career construction counselling for a creative adolescent 18. The philosophy of self-care, individuation and psychodrama: exploring creative means to encountering the "unknown other" in self 19. Standards of performance and aesthetics in counselling and beyond 20. Transforming career stories through poetry: a group-based career counselling intervention