Ruth Herbert is Senior Lecturer in Music Psychology and Music Performance, Director of Graduate Studies, School of Arts, University of Kent and a steering group member of the Centre for Health and Medical Humanities. Initially trained in musicology, she completed an MA in Performance Practice and was awarded a Munster Trust Scholarship to pursue advanced solo studies at the Royal Academy of Music, UK. She has cross-disciplinary research interests in the fields of music and consciousness, trance and ASC, music health and wellbeing, music education, performance psychology, evolutionary psychology and ethology. Published volumes include Everyday Music Listening: Absorption, Dissociation and Trancing (Routledge, 2016[2011]), Music and Consciousness 2: Worlds Practices, Modalities (co-edited volume with Eric Clarke and David Clarke, (OUP, 2019)). Journal articles and chapters have centred on a range of topics, including musical daydreaming and trait/state understandings of absorption. Ruth has contributed to BBC Radio 4 & 5 features on music and consciousness, music and spiritual wellbeing, and music, food and multisensory experience.
The Arts, Creative Expression and Wellbeing
Chaired by Dr Dieter Declercq, with Dr Stella Bolaki, Caroline Eastwood and Allyson Trostle
Roundtable and Discussion
How does creative involvement with the Arts support health and wellbeing in daily life? What are the ways in which the Humanities (languages, literature, the arts, history and philosophy) help us to understand aspects of what it is to be human, from emotional expression and empathy to historical understandings of illness and health?
This session introduces the work of the University of Kent’s Centre for Health and Medical Humanities. Launched in 2022 the CHMH brings together scholars who investigate the relationship of the arts and humanities to health, healthcare, medicine and medical education. It features four brief case studies, before opening up an informal discussion with panel members and the audience.
Case study contributions:
- Emotion becomes book: Artists’ books in participatory arts and health contexts. Dr Stella Bolaki (Co-Director Centre for Health and Medical Humanities, Reader in American literature and Medical Humanities).
- Health musicking in everyday life and participatory arts contexts. Dr Ruth Herbert (Senior Lecturer, Music psychologist, School of Arts, Dept of Music & Audio Technology)
- Film sound and empathy. Caroline Eastwood (Film Studies)
- Representations of female mental illness in fiction and the use of self-writing to manage emotional wellbeing. Allyson Trostle (School of English)
Roundtable Chair: Dr Dieter Declercq, Co-Director Centre for Health and Medical Humanities, Senior Lecturer in Film and Media.