Table of Contents

Foreword: Eureka! Discovering Gold in a Leaden World, Michelle LeBaron. Part I: Principles. 1. Art Opens to the World: Expressive Arts and Social Action, Stephen K. Levine. 2. From Social Change to Art Therapy and Back Again: A Memoir, Ellen Levine. 3. Social Activism within Expressive Arts "Therapy": What's in a Name? Karen Estrella. 4. Communal Art-making and Conflict Transformation, Paolo Knill. 5. From the Studio to the World: How Expressive Arts Therapy Can Help Further Social Change, Shaun McNiff. Part II: Issues. 6. A Social-Critical Reading of Indigenous Women's Art: The Use of Visual Data to 'Show,' rather than 'Tell,' of the Intersection of Different Layers of Oppression, Ephrat Huss. 7. Inside-out Outside-in: Found Objects and Portable Studio, Debra Kalmanowitz and Bobby Lloyd. 8. From Private Pain Toward Public Speech: Poetry Therapy with Iraqi Survivors of Torture and War, Shanee Stepakoff, Samer Hussein, Mariam Al-Salahat, Insherah Musa, Moath Asfoor, Eman Al-Houdali, and Maysa Al-Hmouz. Part III: Projects. 9. The Choreography of Absence: (In)habiting the Imagination After War, Carrie MacLeod. 10. Creating Space for Change: The Use of Expressive Arts with Vulnerable Children and Women Prisoners in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gloria Simoneaux. 11. Beauty in the Rough Places, Karen Abbs. 12. Art as a Gift: Expressive Arts in Bolivia, Sally Atkins. 13. A Black Dog on a Green Meadow: Doing Expressive Arts Therapy in Peru: Some Headlines, TAE Peru (Judith Alalu, Jose Miguel Calderon, Ximena Maurial, Monica Prado, Martin Zavala). 14. These Stories are Burning a Hole in my Brain: Using the Arts to Tell the Stories of the Ethiopian Jewish Immigrant Community in Israel, Vivien Marcow Speiser and Samuel Schwartz. Afterword: The Power of Poiesis, MaryBeth Morand.

About the Author

Stephen K. Levine is Professor Emeritus of Social Science at York University in Toronto, Canada, Vice-Provost and Dean of the Doctoral Program in Expressive Arts Therapy: Education, Consulting and Social Change at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, and Co-Director of ISIS Canada. Shaun McNiff PhD, ATR is the Provost and Dean of Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts. An internationally-renowned figure in the creative arts therapies, he has written many critically-acclaimed books including Art as Medicine: Creating a Therapy of the Imagination,Educating the Creative Arts Therapist and Depth Psychology of Art. Dr McNiff has been honoured on many occasions for his pioneering contributions to the creative arts therapy field, and he is the 1997 recipient of the America Art Therapy Association's Honorary Life Member Award.

Reviews

It is difficult to describe this book in a few words - please read it and be inspired!
*Restorative Justice.org*

Reading the collected essays found in this book is like being given a window into not only the diversity of what expressive arts therapy and its uses in the public sphere are, but beyond that, what expressive arts looks like and feels like from the perspective of those expressive art practitioners who utilize the tools of the arts within a framework of social healing and change... This book is an opportunity to see clearly the connection between expressive arts and social change: the natural phenomenon that occurs when you allow those you work with to be held in a space where they can express their most fundamental experiences.
*Psychology & Arts Newsletter*

Calling all practitioners, therapists, educators and community members! The trumpets have sounded; calling up all available and able expressive and creative arts therapists for the charge of social action. Art in Action: Expressive Arts Therapy and Social Change is not the first book to champion social issues; however, its fourteen chapters may be the broadest and yet most focused work addressing the use of art for social and political change... The most powerful contribution of Art in Action is the work itself, the making of change, and the chapters that demonstrate and address the hardships and societal issues where arts-based practitioners have created change... These published testaments to community change through art are worthy of celebration and congratulations.
*The Arts in Psychotherapy*

Art in Action is a well written book providing both theoretical and practical considerations and an abundance of rich and detailed accounts of expressive art projects within a wide range of communities. It was both interesting and inspiring. This book is highly recommended to any professionals working in a mental health capacity and those working with communitites in order to affect social change.
*British Association of Play Therapists.*