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What if the work of a nurse, physio, or homecare worker was designated an art, so that the qualities of the experiences they create became understood as aesthetic qualities? What if the interactions created by artists, directors, dancers, or workshop facilitators were understood as works of care? Care Aesthetics is the first full-length book to explore these questions and examine the work of carer artists and artist carers to make the case for the importance of valuing and supporting aesthetically caring relations across multiple aspects of our lives.

Theoretically and practically, the book outlines the implications of care aesthetics for the socially engaged arts field and health and social care, and for acts of aesthetic care in the everyday. Part 1 of the book outlines the approaches to aesthetics and to care theory that are necessary to make and defend the concept of care aesthetics. Part 2 then tests this through practice, examining socially engaged arts and health and social care through its lens. It makes the case for careful art exploring the implications of care aesthetics for participatory or applied arts. Then it argues for artful care and how an aesthetic orientation to care practices might challenge some of the inadequacies of contemporary care.

This is a vital, paradigm-shifting book for anyone engaged with socially engaged arts or social and health care practices on an academic or professional level.

After waking up one November morning to find her mother in severe respiratory distress, Ciara managed to get her the medical attention she needed before the worst happened.

However, what initially looked like a single cataclysmic medical event turned into an eight-month hospital admission, where Ciara’s mother endured a series of life-threatening medical occurrences within the hospital’s intensive care unit.

Subsequently, her mother was put onto a breathing ventilator for three months and received full life support due to organ failure.

As Ciara fumbled through the first few months of her mother’s hospitalisation, she discovered there was no space within the medical community (or anywhere else) for the grief and trauma she endured, a result of her mother’s life-limiting illnesses and mechanical ventilation.

During which time, Ciara discovered realities about the medical industry that were just as devastating as the illnesses that assaulted her mother’s body, the physician’s incapacity to acknowledge mortal suffering, a by-product of their medical training.

Surviving The Hospital is a passionate account of her phenomenal journey from daughter to caregiver and how it feels to be at the frontline of critical care as a non-physician.

The disclosures within the book offer practical tips and suggestions for intensive care patients and families and how people can navigate their interactions with physicians and their emotional well being during what is likely to be the worst time of their lives.

Stunningly personal yet applicable for all, the book is a courageous guideline for anyone traversing the pitfalls of critical illness and an alert for physicians to view patients as human beings first and foremost and not a disease.

‘An inspiring book for our challenging times’ Olivia Coleman

Nurses have never been more important.

We benefit from their expertise in our hospitals and beyond: in our schools, on our streets, in prisons, hospices and care homes. When we feel most alone, nurses remind us that we are not alone at all.

In The Courage to Care bestselling author Christie Watson reveals the remarkable extent of nurses’ work:

– A community mental-health nurse choreographs support for a man suffering from severe depression
– A teen with stab wounds is treated by the critical-care team; his school nurse visits and he drops the bravado
– A pregnant woman loses frightening amounts of blood following a car accident; it is a military nurse who synchronises the emergency department into immaculate order and focus.

Christie makes a further discovery: that, time and again, it is patients and their families – including her own – who show exceptional strength in the most challenging times. We are all deserving of compassion, and as we share in each other’s suffering, Christie Watson shows us how we can find courage too. The courage to care.

‘Let’s be thankful for wonderful nurses – and writers – like Christie Watson’ Jacqueline Wilson

‘Christie Watson writes with the fullness of her heart to give us insight into the world of patients and nursing, inspiring us to recognise it is how we treat people, how we speak and respond to them, as well as what we do, that heals’ Julia Samuel