Abstract

Using an arts-based heuristic approach, this research examines the therapeutic experience of cooking. A review of literature highlights the sensory and creative qualities inherent in food, comparing these qualities with the methods, materials and psychodynamic theories inherent in the art therapy process. The researcher’s own reflective process is described, modeling how cooking and art making is a self-affirming and regulatory process which could be used by art therapists as a personal reflection process, to increase self-awareness and wellbeing. Derived from this heuristic investigation, themes related to the therapy process emerged that are then woven into personal experience and relevant literature to ultimately suggest how a community kitchen setting could function as a safe and inclusive place, where participants could experience cooking and art making within a creative arts therapies framework. Finally, it is suggested that these public homeplaces already being adapted for therapeutic benefit within community settings are also natural sites for an expansion of art therapy methods for, what the author calls, “cooking therapy groups.”