The full article is published in: Review of General Psychology (June 2024)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/10892680241260840
Abstract
Aesthetic experiences, emerging saliently in the arts, play a pivotal role in transformative learning and creative processes that elicit physiological, affective, and cognitive responses associated with mental health indices. Interactions between subjects and aesthetic objects (e.g., visual artwork, music, and moving bodies) often entail elements of surprise and uncertainty that drive the inference of the hidden causes in the subject’s internal and external environment. These generate dynamics that align with the action-oriented Predictive Processing framework of brain function. Creative Arts Therapies (CATs) harness these dynamics by cultivating relational engagement using the arts modalities, prompting affective and cognitive processing. In this manuscript, we offer a review and conceptual analysis of recent empirical findings and theoretical premises that underpin aesthetic experiences and their relation to the psychotherapeutic use of the arts with a broad spectrum of populations and mental health conditions. We present a neuroscience-based approach to aesthetic intra- and inter-personal experiences, integrating therapeutic change factors of externalization-concretization, embodiment, and symbolization with functional network configurations, and interpersonal brain-to-brain coupling, to support predictive processing, learning, and creativity. Present and future interdisciplinary collaborations are underlined to elucidate the neurodynamic mechanisms driving psychological transformations, bridging neuroaesthetics and CATs.
Authors
Sharon Vaisvaser, Dance/Movement Psychotherapist, PhD in Neuroscience at School of Society and the Arts, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ono Academic College, Kiryat Ono, Israel (email address: sharon.vaisvaser@ono.ac.il)
Juliet L. King, (PhDc), ATR-BC, LPC, LMHC is an Associate Professor of Art Therapy at Department of Art Therapy, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Neurology at the Department of Neurology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA (email address: kingjul@gwu.edu).
Hod Orkibi, Certified Psychodramatist, director of the Drama & Health Science Lab, and Associate Professor at the School of Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, Israel (website: https://dandh.haifa.ac.il/?p=45, email address: horkibi@univ.haifa.ac.il).
Hassan Aleem, Doctor of Philosophy, Post Doctoral Researcher at Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Loyola University, Chicago, IL, USA.