Sarah Ball, 27 January 2015

Present; polly kemp, sarah ball, frances rifkin, sue, ita, marianna bennett, anna mors,

bea holland, alan cox, colin campbell, beatty edney and a few friendly and beautiful

drifters.

Sarah and polly are both seasoned performers and psychotherapists and co founders

of creative order, a new company recently formed with the aim of supplying creatives

with affordable help in order to maintain their mental and creative well being. We were

investigating the ways in which affordable therapy and creative support may benefit

creatives working in the arts.

The need to support mental health for creatives met with general (resounding)

consensus!

There is ‘support’ available at present through BAPAM (affiliated to equity) Funded

mostly by the musicians union, this predominantly caters for physical injury over

mental well being. It is not affordable unless you can pay upwards of £45. I was

quoted £45-80 for counselling/ hypnotherapy. Unrealistic for most creatives.

Response to having therapy to help with mental well being was ‘we can’t afford to do

that…but we can't afford not to'.

Frances (from equity) offered to help by connecting us with someone in Scotland who

has done some further research into these issues. Thankyou Frances!

We discussed using open spaces to meet and develop a non competitive creative

environment in order to hold group discussions, activities etc. Some leads were given

as to where we could go to maybe find affordable space.

Because of the nature of being creative and often more sensitive than most, working in

quite a competitive and irregular environment can have damaging and isolating

effects.

Self esteem issues may be prominent, rejection is prevalent, also having to ‘wear a

mask’ and pretend to be jolly and accommodating rather than feeling that it is safe to

be your authentic self.

Frustrations occur when our creativity is being bypassed eg. Having to do mundane

jobs for money eg Temping etc. Suggesting some form of creative activity alongside

‘money work’ would be beneficial.

Mental survival tools to ‘take away’ would be useful to maintain well being and

promote personal empowerment, confidence and authenticity.

The Churchill report by mark cariston seton may make useful reading (apparently it's

online… But I haven't got around to reading it yet..)

Polly and I would really love to make this work so if anyone can donate space or

advice regarding fundraising/ research development funding etc. it would be very

much appreciated xx

Tags:

therapy, help, Help, Creativity, creativity, Funding, funding, mental health, Mental

health, free space