The Healing Environment: Without and Within

Ed Deborah Kirklin & Ruth Richardson Pub: Royal College of Physicians ISBN 1 86016 191 x £15 (£19.10 incl p&p)

The Healing Environment, is an inspiring collecting of papers written by many of the leading exponents of the arts in healthcare movement. Covering a range of art forms from architecture to patient care it provides fascinating reading and examples of good practise of art in hospitals, in the community and in mental health programmes. It offers readers, whether clinicians, managers, patients or carers the opportunity to explore the healing environment, with information about groundbreaking partnerships and latest developments and thinking in the area from medical practitioners and artists alike. Although hard to single out just one paper in the collection, one especial deserving of mention for bringing us bang up-to-date with the early findings of ground breaking research, is the latest findings of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Arts - a ground-breaking three year research
programme undertaken by scientist Rosalia Staricoff and Art historian Susan Loppert.  It challenges conventional approaches to healthcare by rigorously measuring the impact of art in hospitals using scientific methodology. With clinical evidence from physiological measurements and statistics so valued by the medical world it aims to justify the existence of art in a variety of hospital settings.  

It is particularly pertinent that this compilation of papers is published by The Royal College of Physicians and sponsored by The Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Arts Council England - signs of truly joined-up thinking and the recognition of what (hopefully)is fast becoming a multi-faceted discipline.     

Review by Georgie Goddard
Freelance arts project co-ordinator and NHS Healthcare practitioner (Audiology).
Arts professional Issue 70

SAM's Books compiles the Bookshop section of Arts Professional magazine, and used to compile Bookshop in its predecessor, Arts Business.

This review has appeared in Arts Professional or Arts Business. It gives a longer and more personal description of the book than appears in the booklists.