Garden as phenomenon, method and metaphor in the context of health care, an arts informed life history view

Abstract

This qualitative research project uses arts informed life history methodology to explore the garden as phenomenon, as method, and as metaphor in the personal professional lives of two women; one is myself. The garden as method explores my personal experience of integrating work with horticulture into my practice as a counselling practitioner. It also explores the experience of Felicity Lukace, who integrated her practice as a horticulturalist with work with people. It explores each of our discovery of horticultural therapy as professional practice, and considers how the formalization of intuitive and common sense knowledge impacts the practitioner and her work. As metaphor this is a story which speaks of the influence of the garden--of the life giving forces of texture and colour--on work with people--for Felicity with the elderly, for me with youth; within the institutions of our professions--for Felicity as a horticulturalist and for me as a therapist; within the institutions of our practice--for Felicity in geriatric care facilities, for me in a community based mental health clinic. Considering the garden as phenomenon I explore the particular significance of the people-plant connection, as a forum and mechanism for experiences of authenticity and connection. In my focus on the practitioner over time, I investigate how innovative practice is influenced and develops out of the personal and professional history of each individual practitioner. I consider the new practice in the context of personal and professional development. Implications in the area of practitioner health and renewal are explored. The processes, through which I came to locate a methodological vantage point, that could support, sustain and extend the area of inquiry and my development as a researcher, provide in themselves a parallel investigation to the focal point of my research. My detailed consideration of methodological issues is guided by the principles of creative, aesthetic and imaginative attention to process and relationship characteristic of arts informed research, and as such, offers an alternative approach to the treatment of methodological issues within qualitative research.