About Shaun McNiff

Shaun McNiff is internationally recognized for furthering universal access to artistic expression as a source of creative well-being and human understanding in keeping with the continuities of world experience. University Professor Emeritus at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is past president, and recipient of the Honorary Life Member award, of the American Art Therapy Association. His books include Art As Medicine, Imagination in Action, Trust the Process, and Creating with Others. Shaun was selected by Mary Ann Brussat for the original Living Spiritual Teachers Project recognizing his contributions to everyday spirituality and the enhancement of creative imagination.

Books by Shaun McNiff

Imagination in Action: Secrets for Unleashing Creative Expression

He’s spent a career helping people access their creative potential, and now Shaun McNiff is sharing the secrets he’s learned from observing his own creative process as well as that of others—both those who identify as artists and those who don’t. The result is nothing less than a master class in creativity by one of the great creative theorists—and practitioners—of our time. “This is intended as a practical text,” Shaun says, “a creativity primer, striving to capture the essential things that have been of use to me and others.” The wealth of instruction he provides here in these essential things will be indispensable to artists of all stripes, as well as to all who strive to express themselves with honesty and authenticity using any of the media life makes available. Creative expression is re-visioned as a force of nature, present everywhere, and as accessible as breath.

Art Heals: How Creativity Soothes the Soul

The world is discovering that artistic expression can be a powerful means of personal transformation and emotional and spiritual healing. In this book, Shaun McNiff, a leader in expressive arts therapy for more than five decades, reflects on a wide spectrum of activities aimed at reviving art's traditional healing function. In chapters ranging from "Liberating Creativity" and "The Practice of Creativity in the Workplace" to "From Shamanism to Art Therapy," he illuminates some of the most progressive views in the rapidly expanding field of art therapy:

• The "practice of imagination" as a powerful force for transformation
• A challenge to literal-minded psychological interpretations of artworks ("black colors indicate depression") and the principle that even disturbing images have inherent healing properties
• The role of the therapist in promoting an environment conducive to free expression and therapeutic energies
• The healing effects of group work, with people creating alongside one another and interacting in the studio
• "Total expression," combining arts such as movement, storytelling, and drumming with painting and drawing

Art as Medicine: Creating a Therapy of the Imagination

"Whenever illness is associated with loss of soul," writes Shaun McNiff, "the arts emerge spontaneously as remedies, soul medicine." The medicine of the artist, like that of the shaman, arises from relationships to "familiars"—the themes, methods, and materials that interact with the artist through the creative process. Art as Medicine demonstrates how the imagination heals and renews itself through this natural process. The author describes his pioneering methods of art therapy—including interpretation through performance and storytelling, creative collaboration, and dialoguing with images—and the ways in which they can revitalize both psychotherapy and art itself.

Earth Angels: Engaging the Sacred in Everyday Things

By the time you finish this book, the term "inanimate object" will no longer have a place in your vocabulary, for Shaun McNiff will awaken you to the wondrous energies streaming out of familiar things and bringing a sense of magic into everyday life.

Join the author as he discovers the autonomous spirits of a silver Mercedes convertible, a mysterious cigarette burn on the dining room table, and the scary shadow of a tree outside a child's room. Contemplate with him the bleakness of a hotel conference room and the crucifix that hung over his childhood bed. Let him lead you on a field trip to the "unholy lands" of the shopping mall and faculty meeting, to the familiar spirits of his seaside New England homes, to the realm of dream, reverie, and memory, as he demonstrates how to connect with the life-giving energies of images and things, places and people. These are the earth angels—spirits of everyday life that call for the return of our lost soul to the world.

Unlike the images of winged beings that now pervade popular culture, the earth angels also include the soul's unattractive messengers, whose mission may require offense, pain, or fear as a preparation for change and renewal. Does a Styrofoam cup have soul? McNiff says yes, for the most debased things show us that the presence of the divine depends upon the quality of attention that we bring to our experiences.

Creating with Others: The Practice of Imagination in Life, Art, and the Workplace

Do you believe that life within an organization means death to the creative process? That creativity is the exclusive province of "artistic types"? Wrong! Shaun McNiff shows how we can all cultivate the special kind of creative energy that is generated by people working together in groups, whether in the workplace or other cooperative communities—wherever individuals come together to pursue a common goal through dialogue, interaction, and teamwork.

Creating with Others is designed to address group creativity in both theory and practice. McNiff draws examples from the creative arts as well as from organizational life and everyday work situations. He shows how leaders can be facilitators of creative teamwork, and how artists and other creative people can collaborate fruitfully with others. The book includes exercises and questions that can be used in courses, informal discussion groups, and interactive e-groups. It will also help individual readers—ranging from beginners to artists seeking inspiration—to reflect upon their personal relationship with creativity. Readers will find that they are never alone in the creative process. Creativity is the basic interplay of life, and we establish a vital link to its power through engagements with others.

How Art Heals: Integrating Practice and Research | Professor Shaun McNiff at the London Art Therapy Centre on September 22, 2018.

Art Healing as a Force of Nature, Shaun McNiff, August, 2020, Ecological Earth-Based Arts Therapies, Moscow

Articles

Stepping into the Unknown 
An Excerpt from Trust the Process

An Excerpt from Art as Medicine

A New Way of Looking
An Excerpt from Earth Angels