Making Sense

Lorna Collins is an artist, critic and arts educator. She completed her PhD in French Philosophy as a Foundation Scholar at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, UK. She is the co-editor of Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art, published by Bloomsbury. Her provocative practice as an artist (in paint, film, installation and performance) drives the motor of all her philosophical enquiries.

• List of IllustrationsPreface AcknowledgementsIntroductionPart I: Transformative Therapeutics as Healing for the Individual1. Making Sense of the Aesthetic Experience2. Making Sense Inside the Clinic: Episodes of the Arts Therapies3. Contesting the Clinic: Art, Therapy and the Schizophrenic4. Making Sense Outside the ClinicPart II: Transformative Therapeutics as a Critical Method of Thinking5. Making Sense of Territory: Art Practice and Material Thinking6. Making Political Sense: Vera Frenkel’s String Games7. Making Sense at the Limit8. Making Sense with the PharmaConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

Lorna Collins’ Making Sense: Art Practice and Transformative Therapeutics is a timely contribution to the theory and practice of psychotherapy. As conditions of work and life become increasingly precarious, various forms of mental distress and dis-ease such as depression are on the rise. At the same time, mental health services are perpetually under threat of budget cuts, and are typically under-funded in practically all nations in the world. By thinking through the transformative and potential of individual expression, Collins suggests that art, broadly conceived, can help us to make sense of the world, and thereby ameliorate or alleviate situations of suffering, without necessarily depending on (limited and costly) access to professional psychotherapy.