Communication Research on Expressive Arts and Narrative as Forms of Healing: More than Words examines a number of widely used expressive arts therapies from a communication perspective, providing case studies and other qualitative investigations focused specifically on communication aspects of expressive therapies including drama, music, and dance/movement therapies. This collection, edited by Kamran Afary and Alice Marianne Fritz and authored by contributors with experience as educators, artists, and licensed therapists, integrates communication, therapy, and pedagogy to explore the role and efficacy of expressive arts therapies. Scholars of communication, performing arts, and mental health will find this book particularly useful, along with mental health practitioners and scholars conducting fieldwork.

Kamran Afaryis assistant professor of communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles.Alice Marianne Fritz is lecturer in the Department of Speech at East Los Angeles College.

AcknowledgmentsIntroductionKamran Afary andMarianne Alice FritzPart I. Performance and Drama

1.Teaching Interpersonal Communication in Prison with Narradrama

Kamran Afary

2.More than Human

Mady Schutzman

3.Theatre for Revolution or Theatre for Healing? Forum Theatre with LGBT2SIQ+ and Other Targeted Communities

Jessica Bleuer

4.Two Snapshots: (Staging) Image Theatre as a Healing Art

Bonny McDonald

5.Eyas on the Prize: Mapping the Relaunch of Performance at the University of Houston-Clear Lake

Andrea Baldwin

Part II. Narrative, Art, Dance, and Music

6.Hip-Hop Just Saved Me: Rap Music Engagement as a Music-Based Intervention for Substance-Addicted Youth

Marianne Alice Fritz andKamran Afary

7.Preferred Cultural Mediums of Healing: Rapping into Identity

Travis Heath andJacobo Mesa Ramirez

8.Music Therapy: An Ethnographic Approach to Understanding How Music Therapists and Adolescent Patients Communicate and Perform Community

Melanie Frontz Kramer and Kurt Lindemann

9.Comfort and Catharsis: Critical Reflections on Therapeutic Dance Practice

Greg Langner

10.The Art of Love: Using Participatory Community Arts Engagement to Facilitate Relational Maintenance among Couples with Dementia

Anna K. Griggs,Meara H. Faw, andLaura H. Malinin

11.Storying Clinical Interactions: Narrative Medicine as an Artistic Intervention in Medical Training and Education

Elizabeth SpradleyAbout the Contributors