This comprehensive Handbook defines, surveys, and critiques the burgeoning discipline of arts and health. It brings together the growing evidence base and discusses policy and practice from around the world. Divided into five sections, the Handbook introduces the discipline of the arts and health, explains its importance, and critically examines historical developments, current practice, research, theory and policy.

The first section looks at how the discipline has developed around the world, with discussion of relevant models and frameworks for conceptualising it. The second section provides an overview of the main methods, applications, evidence base and active ingredients of individual domains of art, such as the performing arts, creative writing and the visual arts. The third section highlights how the arts are used to help with specific health needs and with specific populations, providing a more detailed overview of research and practice in key areas, such as adult mental health, forensic settings, and working with children and young people. In the fourth section, consideration is given to how the arts can be used and integrated with specific health professions, such as within public health interventions, psychiatry or educational psychology. The fifth section explores established and emerging theoretical perspectives, debates and models for understanding the impact of the arts for health, including biological, social and critical perspectives. The Handbook ends with a discussion of trends, complexities and future directions for the field.

A comprehensive overview of burgeoning research and scholarship in the arts and health, this Handbook is an essential reference for all advanced students, scholars and practitioners from a wide range of related backgrounds, including the health professions, psychology, education and the medical humanities.