A new route to wellbeing

As a nation, statistics paint a bleak picture of our mental health. In a survey carried out in 2007 it was found that 16.2% of adults met the criteria for at least one ‘common mental disorder’ (CMD). The situation is worse for women with a quarter (25.2%) of female 45-54 year olds meeting the criteria for at least one CMD. In more extreme cases, particularly where a patient has undergone a significant trauma, GPs are increasingly turning to medication to help people get back to mental wellbeing.

But support is growing for organisations in the UK who improve the lives of those facing mental and physical trauma, with art and creative therapies. As an alternative to drugs the benefits are, naturally, problematic – mental healing is difficult to quantify and the time taken to have an effect is variable.

The British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) carried out a survey in 2010/11 to establish which alternative therapies people turn to when drugs cannot help. Over 75% said they had been referred by medical professionals and 87.9% of those surveyed were referred to art therapy, as opposed to other artforms such as drama, dance or music therapy. But the practice is far from accessible. There are just over 3,000 art therapists registered with the Health Professionals Council, whereas there are around 33,000 General Practitioners registered with the NHS. This could explain why, in the BAAT survey, 42% of those who reported that they had not undergone art therapy reported lack of access as the biggest barrier.

The value of independent charities that can help people in local communities through mental illness or trauma seems greater than ever. London-based artist Stuart Semple explained to me why he believes art organisations have the power to transform lives, directly through treatment and indirectly through fundraising. Semple cites specifically the work of medical organisation Freedom From Torture, which helps torture victims who have come to the UK to seek refuge. They announced an Art Week from 21-25 November 2011, culminating in the Artists Drawing a Line Under Torture art auction on 28 November. High profile artists such as Jake and Dinos Chapman and Anthony Gormley donated works to the auction, reflecting its growing status as a worthy cause. The people whom Freedom From Torture helps are often asylum seekers who have fled torture in their native country. For 25 years it has been helping people understand and feel happy in a new country, where they may not feel at home and may experience difficulty re-building their lives. Often they do not speak English, but can express themselves through art and are given a friendly ‘cup of tea’ at the same time.

But why do artists like Semple believe so strongly in arts capacity to empower people? “Understanding is a key part of creative therapy,” he says. “It won’t always work, but when it does it is there for life, and therefore more cost effective than prescribing people drugs.” It’s fair to say that Semple has fashioned himself into a champion for the use of art to heal mental wounds. His own experience of an ongoing anxiety disorder, which was triggered by trauma (a near-death experience caused by a severe allergic reaction), was part of his inspiration for co-founding the Mind creative therapies fund, a charity which supports creative therapies across England and Wales.

Semple says that his immersion in art healed him more than drugs ever could. His passionate advocacy of creative therapies, having been both beneficiary and promoter, is striking. “I understand that it can’t work for everyone, but art has this amazing power; it allows us to externalise feelings that we can’t verbalise, or even understand otherwise. We’re all aware how to be physically healthy because we see it as a good thing. But mental health always makes us think something’s wrong.” He even encourages art therapy as a type of preventative measure, “We need to break the stigma and see mental health as a positive thing, and preserve our mental health.”

Besides a determination to make the public more aware of the options open to them, when suffering relatively common mental illnesses (depression, anxiety, schizophrenia), Semple raises issue with the willingness of GPs to prescribe drugs for mental conditions, without considering alternative options. “Cuts or no cuts,” he insists, “we should be opening our eyes to the potential of art. I was lucky to discover that art could transform my life – once you’ve discovered it, you’ve got it, it’s there, you’re less likely to need endless years of drugs. GPs simply don’t know enough, they need to get away from target-drives.

“It’s not measurable like healing a broken leg, you can’t just say ‘it’s better now’. It’s hard to speak about other people’s experiences, but in everyday cases of mental illness or extreme cases of torture, something we can’t even imagine now in our society, creative therapy can be as good as it gets.”