Could you please remind me what you did for your own MA project on this course (MA Applied Imagination), what you are currently working on, and what your main interests are?
-Psychology backgrounds, works in hospitals, research was about how workers in hospitals can feel less anxious
- I am interested in the recovery process for stroke survivors (which begins in hospitals). Are you aware of any therapeutic methods or tools that could be integrated into a stroke survivor’s daily life?
-Certain colours like green and blue could be part
-Tactiles
2. Are there any gaming strategies you maybe aware of that have a therapeutic effect and could be transferred into a game for stroke survivors? Or an arcade game that comes into mind?
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3. Why do you believe that alternative healing methods are not being integrated into many patients’ healing processes (e.g. at hospitals)?
-There are actually a few in the UK, such as drawing classes, dance classes, gardening and petting animals
4. What therapeutic healing tools have you seen work the best and motivate people the most within hospital environments?
-I feel the animals always had a huge effect on people
- Although you have explored healing methods for medical staff in hospitals, do you feel this could also benefit patients in certain wards?
-Some hospitals already try to change the light, the colour of inside rooms and add plants
-Even in operation rooms there are installation on the ceiling of imagery
6a. My project explores how touching everyday objects for stroke survivors can improve their sensory reaction. Are there any everyday objects you feel could be transformed and adapted with a multi sensory effect?
-Actually any object could be transformed in my opinion
6b. With this, are there any particular materials or textures within your research that you found to have healing effects on the recipient?
-I think what could help you a lot is looking into the ‘’Rhesus monkey theory’’, the ‘’Ulrich stress reduction theory’’ and the ‘’Kaplan attention restoration theory’’.
Analysis:
This interview with a past MA student was not like the rest of my interview experiences. We kept the interview going for about 40 minutes, since in between we always came across other interesting facts, such as links to experiments that could help me to understand certain topics and my topic in general better.
The interview outcome clarified facts that I already knew partly, such as healing colors like blue and green, but also completely new theory’s like the three: ‘’Rhesus monkey theory’’, the ‘’Ulrich stress reduction theory’’ and the ‘’Kaplan attention restoration theory’’.
Interestingly was also that the interviewee had experience within hospital environments and therefore knew what already existed in UK hospitals and the healing process, which I found extremely surprising, since from my experience in Germany I haven’t seen any interesting implementations or change, such as the adaption from light and consideration of colour as she mentioned some hospitals in the UK started to contemplate in their environment.
Regarding which alternative activities already exist in hospitals, the dance and drawing classes made me think of how this could be transformed into a stroke survivor game, as it was mentioned how those are one of the popular alternative healing methods. This led me back to the ”Simon game” which came up in the interview with the physio, which has to do with music, as well as the surrealist drawing game which could be beneficial for patients after adaptions and transformations.
Finally, the most interesting part was the fact that I was able to interact with this past student who was from a completely different field, and gave me insights into outstanding experiments and theory’s as mentioned above.
->This interview was recorded and can be listened to on request
https://drive.google.com/file/d/157WE-141k3roaHi7tWJg05LB3xAe5ptq/view?usp=drive_link