The Life and Art of Bada Shanren (1626 - 1705),
edited by Wang Fangyu, Richard Barnhart, and Judith Smith, New Haven,
Yale University Art Gallery, 1990 [OP]. This is a massive (300 pp) and rich
compendium of material on the life and work (including numerous prints) of
this master artist, poet, and calligrapher who was a monk, rebel, and madman
who pretended he was mad or madman who pretended he was not.
Depression and the Spiritual in Modern Art: Homage
to Miro, edited by Joseph Schildkraut and Aurora Otero. NY, Wiley,
1996. Contains literary, psychological, and artisitc essays on
depression and art, Miro, Tapies, the spiritual, creativity, abstract
expressionism, collage, and a number of related topics: Essential for an
understanding of the issues involved in art, mood disorders, and spirituality
beyond psycholgical and critical writings.
Art/Poetry and Health
Articulations : The Body and Illness in. in Poetry.
[Anthology] Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1994. 426pp. pb
The Therapeutic Potential of Creative... Writing
Writing Myself by Gille Bolton. London, Jessica Kingsley, 1999.
from the Introduction: "Both creative writing and therapeutic writing
would lose much of their power if there was [a distinction]. That charge
comes from the emotional relationship of the writer with their writing."
Writing Well : Creative Writing and... Mental Health,
Deborah Philips, Liz Linington, and Debra Penman, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1999.
is a hands-on handbook written from experiences in work with psychiatric paients.
While not terribly sophisticated in it's theoretical underpining and
oriented to writing as an activity therapy it does contain
useful exercises divided into empathy, changes
and endings, imagined worlds, opening
up, and exploring literary form.
Some other books on writing as therapy
return to metaphor