The Arts For The Blues team recently presented their work at an exciting and inspirational Arts and Psychotherapy one day event at Edge Hill University featuring talks, workshops and performances.

The event explored the contribution that the arts can make to one’s emotional wellbeing and mental health, and the relationship of the arts and psychotherapy. We explored how one field can support and celebrate the other, and together provide access to people in emotional distress from diverse sociopolitical backgrounds.

The event was a unique opportunity to bring together psychotherapists, artists and arts psychotherapists from the local, national and international community and explore synergies, collaborations and respective contributions. Speakers and participants included the chief executive of UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), Professor Sarah Niblock, and the commissioning manager at the NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning
Group (CCG), Andy Kerr.

During the event, Edge |Hill launched the new MSc in Psychotherapy and Counselling: Contemporary Creative Approaches, presented the new and largest arts therapies trial in mental health care: (the ERA trial, funded by the National Institute for Health Research) and welcomed lectures, workshops and performances from colleagues and students from the
US, the Netherlands and Latvia.

The event was of particular interest to artists, psychotherapists and counsellors, mental health practitioners and service providers, educators and policy makers interested in the area of arts and wellbeing.