How does being a creative affect your mental health? 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