Creative arts therapies and clients with eating disorders

Abstract

Creative Arts Therapies and Clients with Eating Disorders, edited by music therapist Annie Heiderscheit, provides a thorough look at the use of creative arts therapies in the treatment of clients with eating disorders. The editor begins by describing the complexity of these disorders that include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and eating disorders not otherwise specified. She then points out a worldwide increase in their pervasiveness, which calls for effective, multidisciplinary, and new methods of treatment. This is where the creative arts therapies come into play. While there are only limited evidence-based studies that examine the creative arts therapies in the treatment of clients with eating disorders, countless qualitative case illustrations indicate the effectiveness of art therapy, music therapy, dance/movement therapy, poetry therapy, and drama therapy with this population. A shared aim in all creative arts therapies is the development of a symbolic language that “can provide access to unacknowledged feelings and a means of integrating them creatively in the personality, enabling therapeutic change to take place” (Dokter, 1995, p. 3). In 16 thoughtfully assembled chapters, we learn about the symbolic language of each of the five creative arts therapy modalities. We discover how they foster insight and change, uncover feelings and stories, give voice to the hidden, and allow for meaning to emerge. With international contributions from four different countries—the United States, Australia, Norway, and Latvia—the authors ultimately expand and further investigate the use of creative arts in the treatment of eating disorders. Particularly helpful are the numerous case illustrations that are sprinkled throughout each chapter, offering a sense for the practical implementation of creative arts therapy methods.

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