Nicola Shaughnessy, Professor of Performance in the School of Arts has just co-edited a new collection, Performing Psychologies: Imagination, Creativity and Dramas of the Mind (Bloomsbury 2019) with Philip Barnard.

The book offers new perspectives on arts and health, focusing on the different ways in which performance interacting with psychology can enhance understanding of the mind. The book challenges stereotypes of disability, madness and creativity, addressing a range of conditions (autism, dementia and schizophrenia) and performance practices including staged productions and applied work in custodial, health and community settings.

Featuring case studies ranging from Hamlet to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the pioneering work of companies such as Spare Tyre and Ridiculusmus, and embracing dance and music as well as theatre and drama, the volume offers new perspectives on the dynamic interactions between performance, psychology and states of mind. It contains contributions from psychologists, performance scholars, therapists and healthcare professionals, who offer multiple perspectives on working through performance-based media.

There will be a book launch at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham, London, on Wednesday 23 January 2019, at 18.30. This precedes a performance of Hearing Things (Playing On Theatre), which is featured in the book, (performance starts at 19.30). The event is also an NHS night, organised by Dr Paul Gilluley, Chief Medical Officer at East London Foundation Trust, with a panel discussion afterwards at 21.00 in which Nicola will participate with representatives from the theatre company, mental health service users and medical professionals. The panel includes the psychiatrist Hugh Grant-Peterkin who contributed to the final chapter of the book: “Re:Creating Psychiatry”.

Tickets for the performance of Hearing Things on Wednesday 23 January can be booked here.

For more information about the book, please see the publisher’s page.