All Outputs (63)

Failsafe: a choreography (2024)
Book

Failsafe: A Choreography by Scott Thurston offers an entrancing fusion of movement and language, inviting readers into a kinetic journey where poetry and dance entwine. Each phrase pulses with energy, unraveling the body in motion, while the rhythm o... Read More about Failsafe: a choreography.

Digital Psychotherapies for Adults Experiencing Depressive Symptoms: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2024)
Journal Article

Background: Depression affects 5% of adults and it is a major cause of disability worldwide. Digital psychotherapies offer an accessible solution addressing this issue. This systematic review examines a spectrum of digital psychotherapies for depress... Read More about Digital Psychotherapies for Adults Experiencing Depressive Symptoms: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Arts for the blues: a new creative psychological therapy for depression (2024)
Book Chapter

Routinely prescribed psychological therapies for depression are not always effective. Arts therapies, particularly Dance Movement Psychotherapy, may offer additional therapeutic mechanisms for depression. Therefore, client-reported helpful factors fr... Read More about Arts for the blues: a new creative psychological therapy for depression.

Conference Report: Poetry & Care (2024)
Journal Article
Nissel, J., Thurston, S., Fitzsimons, M., & Spence, S. (in press). Conference Report: Poetry & Care. Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, 15(1), https://doi.org/10.16995/bip.11688

The following multi-authored report provides an account of the Poetry & Care conference held at the University of Plymouth, 7-8 September 2023. Many thanks to the organisers: Anthony Caleshu, Mandy Bloomfield, and Russell Evans

Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’ (2024)
Journal Article
Karkou, V., Omylinska-Thurston, J., Thurston, S., Clark, R., Perris, E., Kaehne, A., & Pearson, M. (in press). Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’. PloS one, 19(1), e0296178. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296178

Place-based arts initiatives are regarded as rooted in local need and as having capacity to engage local assets. However, many place-based arts initiatives remain poorly funded and short-lived, receiving little attention on how to scale up and sustai... Read More about Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’.

Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’ (2024)
Journal Article
Karkou, V., Omylinska-Thurston, J., Thurston, S., Clark, R., Perris, E., Kaehne, A., & Pearson, M. (2024). Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’. PLoS ONE, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296178

Place-based arts initiatives are regarded as rooted in local need and as having capacity to engage local assets. However, many place-based arts initiatives remain poorly funded and short-lived, receiving little attention on how to scale up and sustai... Read More about Developing a strategy to scale up place-based arts initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing: A realist evaluation of ‘Arts for the Blues’.

Turning : selected poems 1995-2020 (2023)
Book
Thurston, S. (2023). Turning : selected poems 1995-2020. Shearsman Books

A selected poems volume covering 25 years of work

Turning: Selected Poems 1995-2020 (2023)
Book

“Thurston’s poems always danced, as the early writings here demonstrate, in line and spacing, long before dance as a practice became his poetic focus and his ethical metaphor for other modes of action and introspection. They always measured a world t... Read More about Turning: Selected Poems 1995-2020.

Dancing the Blues: An interdisciplinary collaboration between artists and therapists (2023)
Journal Article

Creative practice differs widely across the contexts of artistic performance and therapy. In this article the authors describe a novel example of how the otherwise separate fields of choreographic practices and dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) have... Read More about Dancing the Blues: An interdisciplinary collaboration between artists and therapists.

The importance of psychological flow in a creative, embodied and enactive psychological therapy approach (Arts for the Blues) (2022)
Journal Article

Psychological flow can be experienced in various occupational, recreational and creative domains and may confer increased well-being. Yet, very few studies have examined flow as a potential feature of creative arts therapies – particularly therapies... Read More about The importance of psychological flow in a creative, embodied and enactive psychological therapy approach (Arts for the Blues).

Bringing creative psychotherapies to primary NHS Mental Health Services in the UK: A feasibility study on patient and staff experiences of arts for the blues workshops delivered at Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services (2022)
Journal Article

There have been several arguments for the need to generate evidence-based creative
forms of psychological interventions in Improving Access to Psychological Services
(IAPT), the main primary mental health provider in hospitals in England, UK. In th... Read More about Bringing creative psychotherapies to primary NHS Mental Health Services in the UK: A feasibility study on patient and staff experiences of arts for the blues workshops delivered at Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services.

Diving to The Cinema Beneath the Lake: a novel as immersive, synthetic-magical exploration of the surrealist prose of Claude Cahun, Ithell Colquhoun and Leonora Carrington (2022)
Thesis

This practice-led PhD explores the role of mimicry (simulation, impersonation, imitation) in the surrealist prose of Claude Cahun, Ithell Colquhoun and Leonora Carrington. It evaluates mimicry both as a feminist critical technique and as a form of ca... Read More about Diving to The Cinema Beneath the Lake: a novel as immersive, synthetic-magical exploration of the surrealist prose of Claude Cahun, Ithell Colquhoun and Leonora Carrington.

Digitising creative psychological therapy : Arts for the Blues (A4B) (2021)
Book Chapter

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a need to adapt and develop psychological interventions that address the mental health of those in need. As a result, Arts for the Blues (A4B), an evidence-based creative group psychotherapy model,... Read More about Digitising creative psychological therapy : Arts for the Blues (A4B).

The dance and movement work of Jennifer Pike Cobbing : economies of effort and vitality dynamics (2021)
Journal Article
Thurston, S. (2021). The dance and movement work of Jennifer Pike Cobbing : economies of effort and vitality dynamics. Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, 13(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.16995/bip.3401

Jennifer Pike (1920-2016) was a major artist whose practice traversed the disciplines of painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, jewellery-making, poetry and performance. Although a fuller appreciation of the scale and range of... Read More about The dance and movement work of Jennifer Pike Cobbing : economies of effort and vitality dynamics.

Threshold moves : a ritual poetry practice (2021)
Thesis

This thesis identifies and explores a practice of ritual poetry. Drawing on creative writing and embodied ritual practice, as well as theory from poetry, performance and anthropology, I form new theoretical and practical understandings of a field of... Read More about Threshold moves : a ritual poetry practice.

Reflections on offering a therapeutic creative arts intervention with cult survivors : a collective biography (2020)
Journal Article

A new, evidence-based, multimodal, and
creative psychological therapy, Arts for the
Blues, was piloted with survivors of cultic
abuse in a workshop within a conference
setting. The five facilitators, who occupied
diverse roles and perspectives w... Read More about Reflections on offering a therapeutic creative arts intervention with cult survivors : a collective biography.

ITEM 4: Things Which Cross My Path Film 1 (2020)
Digital Artefact

A scratch performance delivered to the Leverhulme funded Aesthetic Pleasures Across Disciplines seminar on Friday 13 April 2018.

More videos available at the weblink.

ITEM 5: Things Which Cross My Path Film 2 (2020)
Digital Artefact

A scratch performance delivered to the Leverhulme funded Aesthetic Pleasures Across Disciplines seminar on Friday 13 April 2018.

More videos available at the weblink.

READ FIRST: Vital Signs (2020)
Data

Read first document describing sequence in which to engage with portfolio.

Arts for the Blues : the development of a new evidence-based creative group psychotherapy for depression (2020)
Journal Article

Introduction:
Depression affects many adults in the UK, often resulting in referral to primary care
mental health services (e.g. Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, IAPT).
CBT is the main modality for depression within IAPT, with other ap... Read More about Arts for the Blues : the development of a new evidence-based creative group psychotherapy for depression.