Assistant Professor of Neurology Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, an award-winning graphic artist, collected hundreds of stories of people who have found emotional healing through art.1 In their book, Your Brain on Art, authors Magsamen and Ross offer readers a fascinating review of the interconnections between the arts and the human brain and the powerful influences of those relationships.
Neuroaesthetics is the term for study of the effect of creative arts on the brain. Neuro refers to the nervous system, and aesthetics refers to the appreciation of beauty. In this new science, researchers could potentially investigate all kinds of creative art, such as reading, writing, dancing, sculpting, making music, listening to music, making art, visiting art museums, making videos, designing jewelry, sewing, working in the garden, and cooking. Theoretically, any of these and many more such activities might have a positive effect on the brain.
Neuroaesthetics focuses on the changes in the prefrontal cortex, which is the front of the brain where we humans do our thinking. This region of the brain also measures activity in the limbic system, where the brain hosts memories, emotions, and instincts. Although neuroaesthetics is an unplowed field, this New York Times bestseller provides an impressive 300 pages of stories that validate the authors’ hypothesis that art is beneficial to the mind.
My favorite story from Your Brain on Art is from “Chapter 3: Restoring Mental Health.” The authors tell the story of Judy Tuwaletstiwa, a visual artist, art teacher, and writer. In 1984, Tuwaletstiwa felt emotionally drained from her unprocessed childhood trauma. A friend advised her, “You’ve always wanted to spend time alone in the desert. You need to go there. Now” (p. 68).
Tuwaletstiwa hiked Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and visited the ancient Hopi kivas, archeological sites once used for sacred ceremonies. She learned that the Ancestral Puebloans2 painted murals on the walls of the kivas for each ceremony, then they would paint over the mural and paint a new one for the next ceremony.
This experience led to Tuwaletstiwa’s art project that she called Continuing Paintings.3 To begin with, she painted a 6-by-4-foot canvas with one painting after another on the same canvas. Whenever she felt a painting was complete, she would take a photograph, then go back into the painting and turn it into another painting. She did a series of three separate Continuing Painting canvases in the series, with 80 to 90 photos from each canvas. She said at times she would be moved by the painting and sit with it for 3 days before painting over it.
Tuwaletstiwa said, “Some days, dark images and difficult feelings emerged. I felt like I was swimming in the deepest part of the ocean” (p. 70). She added, “I follow the brush as it illuminates, teaching my eyes to listen. The story has always been here. The language forms. The meaning will come” (pp. 70–71). This art project lifted her depression and brought back her love for life.
The Continuing Paintings method may not be for everybody: Some artists could find it difficult to paint over a good painting even if they had a photograph. However, Tuwaletstiwa needed to let go of her childhood trauma, and letting go of each stage of her Continuing Paintings allowed her to heal.
Magsamen and Ross show that organizations and individuals already believe art is a valuable assist for healing. Most artists I know are already aware of this, and many people who have exited cults also know the value of art for healing. Your Brain on Art provides a great deal of information to support the authors’ hypothesis. Frankly, I read this book as a 300-page luring incentive for quantitative researchers to measure the power of art on the brain.
Most artists I know are already aware of this, and many people who have exited cults also know the value of art for healing.
Art is one of my hobbies and it’s been like that all my life. Sometimes, my emotions are buried down there inside and won’t go into words; but they will go into abstract pictures quite easily. By doodling, sketching, or making a painting, I can express my feelings so I can look at them. Sometimes, when I’m writing in my journal, I say everything I’m going through in words. Then, when I run out of words, I draw images to complete my thoughts. And when I look back at these entries, my scribbles still make sense to me even though nobody else would understand. Even though most of these scribbles never evolve to an art piece, they make me happy.
Working with artists in ICSA, I notice I’m not the only former cult member who expresses themselves through creative art. The Phoenix Project4 art gallery and live performance at conferences showcase former cult-member artwork, poetry, music, and other mediums so each person can share their healing journey. The Phoenix Project has been established in ICSA over many years, thanks to founder Diana Pletts, who started the project because of her love for art and her firm belief in the ability of art to heal trauma.
Scholarly research on cult recovery is another branch of ICSA. ICSA has academic journals like International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation, and over the years, researchers have done quantitative studies, including students who have done their dissertations on this subject. Because an underlayment of basic research on cult trauma and recovery already exists, I believe this would be a fertile ground for researchers to study the effects of art on the brain. For one thing, it’s a large population that shares a similar trauma. It would be easier to collect meaningful data from this population, unlike collecting data from random study of trauma victims with vastly different experiences. Trauma can come from childhood neglect, loss of a parent early in life, child abuse, bullying, an abusive marriage, death of a child, death of a spouse, a traumatic injury, witnessing a murder, and so on. Gathering data from a more cohesive cohort is something ICSA offers to researchers in this field.
Meanwhile, as we wait for more statistical research on this subject, we can still incorporate creative work for healing into our lives. We look forward to the day when neuroaesthetics science will offer statistical proof of the positive effects of art on the brain.
