Open AccessArt Making Promotes Mental Health: A Solution for Schools That Time Forgot
Author(s) -
Brittany Harker Martin,
S. Mitchell Colp
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
canadian journal of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.165
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1918-5979
pISSN - 0380-2361
DOI - 10.53967/cje-rce.v45i1.5017
Subject(s) - mental health , psychology , mental image , sample (material) , process (computing) , field (mathematics) , test (biology) , conceptual model , applied psychology , social psychology , cognition , psychotherapist , computer science , psychiatry , paleontology , chemistry , chromatography , database , biology , operating system , mathematics , pure mathematics
This article presents art as a tool for promoting mental health in schools by examining the effects of art making in a sample of 104 school-based mental health professionals. It unites findings from unrelated disciplines to derive and test a new conceptual framework proposing that active engagement in a visual-tactile process over time mediates a shift to healthy mental states and that regular engagement in such process builds mental health capacity. Four hypotheses are tested through psychometrics with statistically significant findings for all (p < .05). Through this study, we advance Flow Theory in identifying a new causal mechanism for accessing Flow; and we make a novel, interdisciplinary contribution to the field of mental health in providing psychometric evidence that making visual art promotes mental health.