About us

Our work is informed by complexity theory, critical theory and process philosophy. Together, these perspectives shape how we understand creativity, health, and their relationship to one another and social contexts.

Rather than viewing health as a fixed state to be restored, we treat it as an ongoing process of becoming, adaptation and creative response to changing circumstances. This directs our attention to how arts-based practices open possibilities for people whose options have been constrained by illness, social conditions or the limitations of available treatments.

We are particularly interested in emergence. Therapeutic change in arts-based practices often occurs through unexpected developments rather than linear progress. Paying attention to emergence requires us to look closely at what happens when someone engages in the arts: the encounter with materials, the dynamics of creating alongside others, and the ways in which images and objects can alter how people experience themselves and their worlds.

We also maintain a critical orientation to widely used concepts such as creativity, resilience and wellbeing. These ideas can be mobilised in ways that place responsibility for structural problems onto individuals. When people are encouraged to be “resilient” in the face of conditions that should not have to be endured, or “creative” in adapting to circumstances that ought to change, it is important to ask whose interests are being served. Our research pursues such questions through empirical and theoretical enquiry.

We do not regard research as producing knowledge that is then simply “applied” to practice, as if practice were a passive recipient of theory. We understand clinical and community practice as forms of enquiry in their own right.

Arts psychotherapists and other arts-based practitioners develop sophisticated understandings of therapeutic processes, relational dynamics, institutional constraints, and what facilitates or hinders change. This practice-based knowledge is not a lesser form of evidence awaiting academic validation; it is a critical resource that formal research can extend, test, refine and help to communicate more widely.

Many of our research questions therefore originate in clinical or community observations. When practitioners notice patterns, tensions or surprising developments that seem to make a difference to a person, group or team, these observations become hypotheses for investigation using a range of methods. Equally, we co-produce research to explore findings with practitioners and people with lived experience before considering them robust or ready for wider use.

This iterative exchange between practice and research is central to the group’s identity. It allows us to produce evidence that is both methodologically rigorous and contextually meaningful, capable of informing theory, policy and service development.

We are committed to building capacity for high-quality creative health research across professions and career stages.

From January 2026 we will host a fortnightly Research Development Forum, providing a structured and supportive space in which early career researchers, doctoral students and clinicians developing evaluations can present work-in-progress. The emphasis is on constructive critique, methodological clarity and feasibility in real-world settings. Sessions will run in hybrid format, with in-person participation encouraged where possible.

We are also launching a Critical Ethics Reading Group, led by Dr Salman Safir (University of Illinois at Chicago). This group will address ethical questions that extend beyond standard research ethics procedures, including the politics of psychological knowledge, colonial legacies in mental health, and the dilemmas of working within systems whose values researchers and practitioners may not fully share.

Alongside these activities, we are developing a research-oriented podcast for practitioners, researchers and students. Episodes will focus on methodologies, emerging concepts and the practical implications of research for clinical and community decision-making, supporting critical engagement with evidence—neither dismissing it as irrelevant nor accepting it uncritically.

In October 2026, we will host a student research symposium showcasing MA dissertations, doctoral work and alumni projects. Timed to coincide with induction week, the symposium will introduce incoming students to the breadth of research in arts, health and social change and illustrate the kinds of questions that can be pursued at Brunel and in partner institutions.