Yanna Marie Orcel
Creative Care Approach: Wellness-Centered Creative Expression for People of the African Diaspora

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that African Americans face higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to their White counterparts; however there are few resources addressing tried methods of working with Black patients and within Black communities to aid their wellness through creative expression. Research project “Creative Care” was developed as a mode of making wellness-centered art exercises more accessible to Black identifying people; to provide opportunities for Black adults to engage in creative acts of exploration, processing and resilience building as a response to the ferocious and insidious effects of the lived experience of social and systematic racism—all while building and fostering a greater sense of community. This research examines the relationship between multicultural art therapy, Black identity, and community engagement through group sessions that invite participants to practice emotional identification, respond to artwork, meditate, create, and share through discussion. Creative Care utilizes art therapy approaches to provide African Americans and Black British participants with space to address their individual and group identity as members of the Black community; while also providing participants with forms of emotional regulation they can use thereafter. Workshops for this research utilized curricula that were specifically developed for people of the African diaspora. Two 6-session research workshops were conducted, one online with African Americans and the other held at Royal College of Art with London-based Black identifying students. The online workshop’s curricula explored the seven psychological benefits of art elaborated on in Alain de Botton and John Armstrong’s “Art as Therapy” (2013), through a Black lens.

Keywords: wellness-centered art, multicultural art therapy, art psychotherapy, Black community, African American