In this dissertation the author has created six multimodal books in three volumes, which documents the researcher’s and others’ experiences of living with post-operative on-going pain. The primary research participant, the author, along-side two other participants, and other therapeutic companions variously engage in postcard exchanges, drawing, movement, music, creative writing and stitching, to explore how intersubjectivity, careful attention to arts making and an aesthetic sensibility support the mending of bodies in pain.
The research spans nine years and incorporates several inquiries that reflexively build upon each other. What underpins each of these inquires include a valuing of being in the present moment and noticing what emerges, taking time to describe what is happening, being reflective and reflexive, discovering actions which lessen harm, and which orients towards working with content, materials, colours, textures, and forms which hold an attraction for the maker.
The methodology and methods evolved from qualitative, phenomenologically based arts inquiries to a post qualitative arts led approach where knowing-and-becoming are constantly expressed throughout the thesis. With this orientation, this research is a creation in process, where every moment with others including the materials, spaces and places, and processes as well as products of arts making, are relational phenomena. Throughout the research there are constant multimodal expressions of ethically focused negotiations.
In the final volume the researcher looks more closely at moments of felt reconnection and to processes which seemed foundational to a sense of whole body mending.
The thesis offers an alternative to verbally focused group or individual therapy by privileging a quiet, slow, aesthetically resonant companioning relationship (with people and the material and non material world). The work places a focus on being present to the sensory experiences of arts-making whilst working intersubjectively.
Keywords: on-going pain; disability; arts-as-research; MIECAT; Creative Arts Therapy; arts-making; intersubjectivity