Expressive Acts: Arts and the Well-Being of Social Workers

Abstract

This study explored the relationship between social worker well-being and personal involvement in expressive arts. I selected interpretive phenomenology, a qualitative approach, because I wanted to gain in-depth insight into social worker experience within a context of arts engagement. Reflexively using my own deep interest in the arts and previous social work experience, I provide an interpretation of participants’ perceptions, encompassing cognitive, spiritual, psychological and/or physical components. This study illuminates a transformative process that may contribute to more effective practice. Through art, participants were open to encountering the spaces between their experience and the multitude of meanings they might find within the context of their lives, their work, and their art. The lack of existing research regarding social workers’ use of the arts to enhance wellness warrants the focus of this thesis, which adds to the self-care discourse amongst social work researchers, practitioners, students, and educators.