Drawing on contributions from Canada, England and Utrecht this book illustrates the transforming effect of creatively applied thinking to social problems - both for those living with social issues and professionals working with them.

Prue Chamberlayne has used biographical methods in a range of research and policy settings. Retired from the Faculty of Health and Social Care at the Open University, she is now writes poetry, and is involved in a community development project in Uganda.

Martin Smith is the Practitioner-Manager of the Buckinghamshire Social Services Out of Hours Emergency Team. He is particularly interested in researching and writing about social workers' experiences of stress and fear.

Introduction Prue Chamberlayne and Martin Smith

Part 1 - Use of the self in creative expression

1. Where is the love? Art, aesthetics and research Yasmin Gunaratnam

2. Georgie's girl: last conversation with my father Karen Lee

3. Innovative rehabilitation after head injury: examining the use of a creative intervention Claire Smith

4. An interplay of learning, creativity and narrative biography in a mental health setting. Bertie's story Olivia Sagan

Part 2 - Theoretical underpinnings

5. Smoke without fire? Social workers' fears of threats and accusations Martin Smith

6. Creating communication. Self-examination as a therapeutic method for children Carolus van Nijnatten and Frida van Doorn

7. Arts based learning in restorative youth justice: embodied, moral and aesthetic Lynn Froggett

Part 3 - The wider community

8. 'Ways of knowing and showing': imagination and representation in feminist participatory social research Victoria Foster

9. Representations of violence: learning with Tate Modern Hannele Weir

10. 'I thought I wasn't creative but...' Explorations of cultural capital with Liverpool young people Paula Pope

11. Case Experience: 'Dancing Shoes', A Buddhist Perspective Donovan Chamberlayne