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Arts-Based Compassion Skills Training (ABCST): Channelling Compassion Focused Therapy Through Visual Arts for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples
The last 20 years have seen the development of a new form of therapy, compassion focused therapy (CFT). Although CFT has a growing evidence base, there have been few studies of CFT outside of an Anglo-European cultural context. In this paper, we ask: Might a CFT-based approach be of value for Indige...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7772135/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33391084 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568561 |
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author | Bennett-Levy, James Roxburgh, Natalie Hibner, Lia Bala, Sunita Edwards, Stacey Lucre, Kate Cohen, Georgina O’Connor, Dwayne Keogh, Sharmaine Gilbert, Paul |
author_facet | Bennett-Levy, James Roxburgh, Natalie Hibner, Lia Bala, Sunita Edwards, Stacey Lucre, Kate Cohen, Georgina O’Connor, Dwayne Keogh, Sharmaine Gilbert, Paul |
author_sort | Bennett-Levy, James |
collection | PubMed |
description | The last 20 years have seen the development of a new form of therapy, compassion focused therapy (CFT). Although CFT has a growing evidence base, there have been few studies of CFT outside of an Anglo-European cultural context. In this paper, we ask: Might a CFT-based approach be of value for Indigenous Australians? If so, what kind of cultural adaptations might be needed? We report the findings from a pilot study of an arts-based compassion skills training (ABCST) group, in which usual CFT group processes were significantly adapted to meet the needs of Indigenous Australians. At face value, CFT appeared to be a promising approach to enhancing the social and emotional wellbeing of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. However, despite initial consultations with Indigenous health professionals, the first attempts to offer a more conventional group-based CFT to Indigenous clients were largely unsuccessful. Following a review and advice from two Indigenous clients, we combined elements of CFT with visual arts to develop a new approach, “arts-based compassion skills training” (ABCST). This paper reports an evaluation of this pilot ABCST group. The group had 6 × 4 h sessions of ABCST, facilitated by two psychologists (1 Indigenous, 1 non-Indigenous) and two artists (1 Indigenous, 1 non-Indigenous). There were 10 participants, who attended between 2 and 6 sessions: five were clients, five were health professionals. Between 1 and 3 months later, six of the participants (2 clients, 4 health professionals) were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of interview data identified that two key processes—creating a positive group atmosphere and channeling compassion skills training through the medium of visual arts—led to four positive outcomes for participants: planting the seeds of new understandings, embodying the skills of compassion, strengthening relationships with others, and evolving a more self-compassionate relationship. We suggest that the preliminary results are sufficiently encouraging to warrant further development of ABCST in Indigenous communities. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7772135 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77721352020-12-31 Arts-Based Compassion Skills Training (ABCST): Channelling Compassion Focused Therapy Through Visual Arts for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples Bennett-Levy, James Roxburgh, Natalie Hibner, Lia Bala, Sunita Edwards, Stacey Lucre, Kate Cohen, Georgina O’Connor, Dwayne Keogh, Sharmaine Gilbert, Paul Front Psychol Psychology The last 20 years have seen the development of a new form of therapy, compassion focused therapy (CFT). Although CFT has a growing evidence base, there have been few studies of CFT outside of an Anglo-European cultural context. In this paper, we ask: Might a CFT-based approach be of value for Indigenous Australians? If so, what kind of cultural adaptations might be needed? We report the findings from a pilot study of an arts-based compassion skills training (ABCST) group, in which usual CFT group processes were significantly adapted to meet the needs of Indigenous Australians. At face value, CFT appeared to be a promising approach to enhancing the social and emotional wellbeing of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. However, despite initial consultations with Indigenous health professionals, the first attempts to offer a more conventional group-based CFT to Indigenous clients were largely unsuccessful. Following a review and advice from two Indigenous clients, we combined elements of CFT with visual arts to develop a new approach, “arts-based compassion skills training” (ABCST). This paper reports an evaluation of this pilot ABCST group. The group had 6 × 4 h sessions of ABCST, facilitated by two psychologists (1 Indigenous, 1 non-Indigenous) and two artists (1 Indigenous, 1 non-Indigenous). There were 10 participants, who attended between 2 and 6 sessions: five were clients, five were health professionals. Between 1 and 3 months later, six of the participants (2 clients, 4 health professionals) were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of interview data identified that two key processes—creating a positive group atmosphere and channeling compassion skills training through the medium of visual arts—led to four positive outcomes for participants: planting the seeds of new understandings, embodying the skills of compassion, strengthening relationships with others, and evolving a more self-compassionate relationship. We suggest that the preliminary results are sufficiently encouraging to warrant further development of ABCST in Indigenous communities. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7772135/ /pubmed/33391084 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568561 Text en Copyright © 2020 Bennett-Levy, Roxburgh, Hibner, Bala, Edwards, Lucre, Cohen, O’Connor, Keogh and Gilbert. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Bennett-Levy, James Roxburgh, Natalie Hibner, Lia Bala, Sunita Edwards, Stacey Lucre, Kate Cohen, Georgina O’Connor, Dwayne Keogh, Sharmaine Gilbert, Paul Arts-Based Compassion Skills Training (ABCST): Channelling Compassion Focused Therapy Through Visual Arts for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples |
title | Arts-Based Compassion Skills Training (ABCST): Channelling Compassion Focused Therapy Through Visual Arts for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples |
title_full | Arts-Based Compassion Skills Training (ABCST): Channelling Compassion Focused Therapy Through Visual Arts for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples |
title_fullStr | Arts-Based Compassion Skills Training (ABCST): Channelling Compassion Focused Therapy Through Visual Arts for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples |
title_full_unstemmed | Arts-Based Compassion Skills Training (ABCST): Channelling Compassion Focused Therapy Through Visual Arts for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples |
title_short | Arts-Based Compassion Skills Training (ABCST): Channelling Compassion Focused Therapy Through Visual Arts for Australia’s Indigenous Peoples |
title_sort | arts-based compassion skills training (abcst): channelling compassion focused therapy through visual arts for australia’s indigenous peoples |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7772135/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33391084 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568561 |
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