A newsletter from the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project about advancing the understanding, assessment, and cultivation of well-being by means of a deep and sustained collaboration between the arts, humanities, and the social sciences.
The medical humanities involve engaging in activities such as visual arts, reflective writing, poetry, and theater, with the aim of building human skills, and subsequently improving healthcare outcomes.
September 2024: The Tango of Flow and the Arts: Step by Step
Research has found that arts engagement facilitates flow experiences through the mechanisms of positive affect, meaning-making, and mindful creativity.
July-August 2024: Anxiety and the Arts
Positive Humanities research addresses anxiety using music, theater, poetry, and creative art-making as effective, affordable, and enjoyable strategies almost anyone can utilize.
June 2024: Beyond the Individual: Expression and the Arts
Research on expression tells a story of creative interconnectedness commemorating the human experience, supporting well-being through art engagement in ways that remind us of and help us process who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re headed.
May 2024: Using the Arts to Mitigate Depression
Depression is characterized by low mood, energy and interest that result in decline of physiological, cognitive and social functioning. While not a clinical panacea, engagement in the arts presents an array of means to facilitate recovery.
April 2024: Using Arts and Humanities for Socialization
The arts and humanities provide significant opportunities for socialization through understanding social values and internalizing them, promoting positive social interaction and identity development.
March 2024: Building Self-Efficacy Through the Arts: How Arts Engagement Can Help You Believe in Yourself
Researchers have found that emotional, cognitive, and social processes involved in arts engagement stimulate self-efficacy. Arts engagement encourages creative freedom, agency, experiential skill-building, and self-trust that enable us to feel confident in our capacity to achieve our goals.
February 2024: Cultivate Belonging with the Arts
A growing body of research demonstrates the value of arts engagement as a life-enhancing means to cultivate belonging in diverse populations and contexts, illuminating novel pathways to a better tomorrow.
January 2024: Reflection: Using the Arts for Meaning-Making
Research across different populations supports the idea that reflection stimulated by arts and humanities engagement provides a source of insight, motivation and means for personal change.