RUTH RICHARDS, MD, PhD
Ruth Richards, M.D., Ph.D. is an educational psychologist and Board Certified psychiatrist, Professor Emerita with Saybrook University in Humanistic Psychology/Creativity Studies and Consciousness, Spirituality, & Integrative Health, and is also Associated Distinguished Professor with the California Institute of Integral Studies; she teaches, researches, writes, and speaks on issues of everyday creativity. Dr. Richards has studied creativity in educational, clinical, social action and spiritual contexts, as well as issues in aesthetics and awareness, creativity and consciousness, and chaos and complexity theories. She has numerous publications and her authored Everyday Creativity and the Healthy Mind: Dynamic New Paths for Self and Society, for Palgrave Macmillan (2018; paperback, 2019) won a Silver Nautilus Award (“Better Books for a Better World”). Her coedited (Schuldberg, Richards, Guisinger, 2022) book has recently come out from Oxford, Chaos and Nonlinear Psychology: Keys to Creativity in Mind and Life. Her website is www.DrRuthRichards.com. Dr. Richards practiced for years as a psychiatrist, is also a visual artist, and is honored to be part of Mirrors of the Mind, along with her empathetic and caring clinician friend, also a uniquely creative writer of screenplays, musicals, and nonfiction, toward health and healing community—the late Jane Rachel Kaplan, Ph.D., MPH.
TWO ABR EXCERPTS: Dramatic Arts, Visual Arts, Can Open Us to New Discussions
(11" x 8.5")
We are two artists, clinicians, scientists, advocates of Arts Based Research (ABR) as well as two creative writers/researchers in creativity and health. We have had our own health challenges too—as indeed have we all. Sometimes the best healing, the best medicine, is right in hand, at times supplementary (and free!), but not to be ignored. Value is well documented, as in Dr. Richards’ (2018) book Everyday Creativity and the Healthy Mind, Palgrave Macmillan), Dr. Kaplan’s poignant, hilarious, and heartbreaking new musical (2022), Infusion: Love, Hope, and Cancer, or P. Leavy’s (2020) research volume, Method Meets Art, 3rd Ed, Guilford. We artists are joining forces to suggest (through two excerpts) the power of ABR, Arts Based Research, which we may all seize. Such explorations can open doors deep within us, and our defended culture, and in ways that can heal us individually and together. A main message of Infusion, in fact, involves exceptional healing in loving community. As clinicians and patient advocates, we would like to see such resources in—minimally—every clinical training program.
JANE RACHEL KAPLAN, PhD, MPH
Jane Rachel Kaplan, Ph.D., MPH passed away October 19, 2022 after 16 years of struggle with ovarian cancer. Courageous yet always loving, she did not go the course alone. She continued to support her clients, and also left creative writings to help others cope with the tragedy and tears of cancer, while also remembering to laugh and love and find a healing community. Jane was a clinical psychologist in private practice in Albany/Berkeley California with a devoted clientele, across a range of issues; husband Andrew Condey is also a clinician. Jane specialized in eating disorders, not just to treat symptoms but create healthy new lives. She offered clients articles with her typical sensitivity plus humor, including “The Un-Candy Bar” and “Why Getting Better Feels Bad” (OptimalEating.com) and coauthored two books. Her writings about cancer combine the heartbreaking and hilarious: a memoir, Lessons from My Heart Wife, and a quite astonishing musical, Infusion: Love, Hope, and Cancer. A video excerpt from Infusion was part of “Our Voices, Our Stories,” a 2020 Theatre of the Mind event, and a written excerpt is part of this 11 th Mirrors of the Mind 2022 online art show. We have lost a dear friend, but Jane’s spirit continues to smile, share, and hold our hand.
