ABSTRACT
As we have seen earlier in Part III, and as numerous texts on the arts therapies have pointed out, the twentieth century saw a dramatic increase in the presence of the arts in organisations or institutions which were involved in healthcare in various countries. This is followed by an increase in the arts as a mode of intervention in the recovery and maintenance of health, or in the treatment of ill-health. In parallel with this, Bourne and Ekstrand (1985) describe the emergence of nineteenth-and twentieth-century psychology as marking a shift: ‘Before the nineteenth century our curiosity about ourselves was largely speculative, yielding few conclusions that all could agree on’ (1985:14). They note the emergence of what is described as ‘scientific psychology’, as scholars trained in medicine and allied sciences developed an approach: ‘In place of speculation came evidence based on observation… The scientific method offered a means for a real breakthrough in our understanding of human behaviour’ (1985:14).
