In Marienplatz in Munich, there is a famous historical landmark called Rathaus-Glockenspiel. It is pure art, created to engage all your senses. I remember seeing it for the first time and how struck by its beauty I was, that I started crying. That memory stayed with me not only because of the emotional experience of art but also because it shifted something in me. It gave me perspective. This got me thinking about art, the human need to create it, and the role art plays in well-being.
Art therapy is already an established type of therapy used to help people process emotions, go through illness, and recover from physical injury. It has also been successfully used to support people working through addictions. In the UK, art and art therapy are now recommended to help with depression and loneliness. In every culture, people have always gathered around storytelling and handwork as a form of bonding, socialisation, shared knowledge and culture.
In the field of Positive Psychology, art is being researched and proven as an effective positive psychology intervention. Performing and creating art and being exposed to it also allows the individual to create meaning and purpose. Recent research is now showing that this natural human tendency and need not only alleviates negative emotions but also enhances positive ones. It plays an important function in human functioning and well-being, as originally thought. The emerging field of Neuroaesthetics looks at what is happening with the human brain when people engage with art, such as drawing, painting, listening to music, knitting, and crafting. What they have noticed is that when people are either around art or in nature, or they are engaged in creating it, all brain regions light up.
In Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us – the authors talk about the significant positive impact of art on the neuroplasticity of the brain at any life stage, and increased resilience and better self-regulation. In addition, it improves cognitive and motor functions. For example, people who doodle have better focus, sustain attention for longer and retain and recall information better, compared to non-doodlers. Skills learned during art-making are transferable in other areas of life.
Furthermore, the multidisciplinary field has now started to look at how technology, such as virtual reality, can be used for good. When a person engages in art, all human senses are engaged at once producing complex activity in the brain. The use of virtual reality can provide a multitude of art-enhanced environments tailored to specific needs, allowing governments and organisations to potentially provide better well-being programmes alongside better social policies.
The above not only tells us what we humans intuitively know about the benefits of art, but how much the importance of art for optimal human functioning has been underestimated in our society. As Neuroaesthetics expand their understanding of the impact of art on well-being, more questions emerge around the use of art in various other fields.
One of these fields is art-based coaching. Although Lego Serious Play is already in use in the space of team and group coaching, not enough research has been conducted on the use of art in coaching. The use of art in coaching has been shown to help coachees process their emotions better during and after sessions. Drawing or doodling during session helps with not only staying focussed on the conversation, but it leads to better insights, an increase in positive emotions and the overall well-being of the coachee. By incorporating art into coaching, the coachee can gain perspective on the issue they are looking to solve or the goal they are looking to progress towards. It can help them paint a picture. For example, in the field of positive psychology coaching, the Best Possible Self is often used as a PPI to help the person imagine the best version of themselves and to work through steps that they might want to take to achieve that or gain clarity and meaning on what it is important to them. Now, imagine instead of asking them to write about their best self, asking the coachee to draw it, or craft it, or express it through dance, music, or a photo collage. If we think back at what we now know from Neuroaesthetics, this will be a much more engaged, almost embodied experience.
For coaches doing somatic and trauma-informed coaching, introducing art as a medium to their coachees provides a deeper yet gentler engagement with their emotions and potentially a way forward. In addition, it equips the coachee with a boundless toolkit that they can then take and use long after the coaching relationship has ended.
How would using art make you a better coach and improve your own practice? How would you show up if art were part of your self-care approach, or if you were to use it during a session? What perspectives would you gain on yourself and on what the coachee brings into the coaching space?
Art is a part of the human spirit. The need to create is an inbuilt PPI that we all have and that has served us for millennia. We all have creativity within us; we just need to bring it forth again and normalise it. If the above shows us anything, it is that art is not a privilege for those with supreme talent, or time and money on their hand. Art is essential for a good life and makes it a human right, so why not incorporate it into our coaching practices and our lives in a purposeful way?
References
Giraldez Hayes, A. (2020). Arts and Well-Being: The Arts as Positive Interventions. In: Postgraduate Program in Arts at Federal University of Minas Gerais.
Kurtz, J. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2013). Happiness promotion: Using mindful photography to increase positive emotion and appreciation. In (pp. 133-136). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14042-021
Leckey, J. (2011). The therapeutic effectiveness of creative activities on mental well-being: a systematic review of the literature: Effectiveness of creative activities on mental well-being. Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing, 18(6), 501-509. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2850.2011.01693.x
Magsamen, S. (2019). Your Brain on Art: The Case for Neuroaesthetics. Cerebrum (New York, NY), 2019.
Magsamen, S., & Ross, I. (2023). Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us (1st ed.). Canongate Books.
Nissley, N. (2010). Arts-based learning at work: economic downturns, innovation upturns, and the eminent practicality of arts in business. The Journal of business strategy, 31(4), 8-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/02756661011055140
Sheather, A. (2019). Introduction to coaching with art. In (1st ed., pp. 1-7). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351166003-1
Smith, W.-A., Boniwell, I., & Green, S. (2021). Positive Psychology Coaching in the Workplace (1st 2021 ed.). Springer.
Yvette, R.-V. (2018). ‘Living life in the meantime’: An arts-based coaching model offering an alternative method of managing personal and professional change. International journal of evidence based coaching and mentoring, 16(1), 143-158. https://doi.org/10.24384/000474