Abstract

Art-based interventions are creative activities that aim to improve health through a wide range of art modalities, such as visual arts, music, dance, storytelling, sculpture, drama, performance, among others. Target groups vary from healthy individuals to those in treatment, and interventions might happen at the individual level or target groups, organisations, communities or entire nations. This seminar discusses the use of arts-based methods for prevention and promotion in mental health, drawing from experiences of teaching, research and public engagement at the University of Brasília (UnB).

Teaching will be illustrated by two courses offered to Psychology students at UnB: “Special Topics in Psychotherapy: Art in Health Promotion”, offered to undergraduates in Psychology; and “Youth Participation, Mental Health and Innovation”, offered to graduate students in Clinical Psychology and Culture. Research will be illustrated by an experience of using digital storytelling to assess and amplify youth participation in mental health promotion (www.engajadamente.org, in collaboration with the University of Oxford). Public engagement will be illustrated by the experience of using participatory and creative methods to prevent violence among adolescents in a state school.

This will be a hybrid seminar in the Richard Doll Building and on Zoom.
Zoom registration medsci.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMocumhpz4oGtCmbDXXJPYkepDtGSsTX0jj