Welcome to Part 1 of The Lapidus 20th Anniversary Special Triple Edition – this is the first of a three Part Special Edition with the theme, Capturing the Collective and Connected Spirit of Writing for Wellbeing. This Part collates alternative accounts and reflections particularly from our stimulating Lapidus Day 2016 celebration...

Welcome to Part 3 of The Lapidus 20th Anniversary Special Triple Edition – this is the final part of a Special Edition with the theme of Capturing the Collective and Connected Spirit of Writing for Wellbeing. This Part focuses on individually focused individually oriented writing practices which create new meanings, understandings, or relationships with something, including themselves...

Welcome to Part 2 of The Lapidus 20th Anniversary Special Triple Edition – this is the second of a three Part Special Edition with the theme, Capturing the Collective and Connected Spirit of Writing for Wellbeing. This Part focuses on writing practices which enable multiple people to connect with each other or to other things in some way, and in doing so, create new meanings, understandings, or relationships with something, including themselves...

We have adopted the teikei approach of haiku (定型, or fixed form) which employs the 5-7-5 pattern (the symmetrical 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables pattern). Three people with an interest in writing, haiku, and wellbeing got together to explore the world of haiku via provocation through the medium of Stumbled Upon (www.stumbleupon.com) to explore what perspectives on the virtual and real world we might create...

It has been two decades since the movie release of Irvine Welsh’s novel ‘Trainspotting’. Saturated with the emotionally charged, experiential grittiness of drug addiction, infant death, and living in deprivation, it touched the hearts and minds of critics and moviegoers alike. It offered glimpses into perspectives and pressures that some of us may have to deal with on a daily basis in recovery work, and especially insightful those of us who may never come to know or even hear about such circumstances in our lifetimes. Whether or not you believe these were dramatisations or ‘reality’, Trainspotting offered the audience the possibility that these experiences may have been experienced – many scenes were deeply troubling...

The rock art of indigenous communities from 20,000 years ago have been interpreted as early indications of how humans have connected performance, in a broad sense, with the health and well-being of their communities (Fleischer and Grehan, 2016). Now, at a global level, there is increasing recognition that drama and theatre can facilitate a variety of health and wellbeing outcomes for an extensive range of groups, not pre-determined by affluence or socioeconomic status (APPG, 2017). In a broad sense, drama and theatre are a constellation of arts based practices, processes, and spaces, which intentionally work with more or less fictive characters, roles, relationships, and plots, in order to generate a wide range of experiences or outcomes (Wall, Österlind and Fries, 2018, forthcoming). Indeed, theatre and drama have been described as “the most integrative of all the arts: they include singing, dancing, painting, sculpture, storytelling, music, puppetry, poetry and the art of acting” (British Medical Association, 2011, p 10), which can help people to understand and then change how they relate to and then live out their own world.

Since the turn of the 21st Century, Mental Toughness has been defined in a variety of ways (e.g. Clough, Earle & Sewell, 2002; Coulter, Mallett & Gucciardi, 2010; Fourie & Potgieter, 2001; Golby & Sheard, 2006; Gucciardi, Gordon & Dimmock, 2008; Jones, Hanton & Connaughton, 2007). Although they differ in many respects, the conceptualisation share a number of similarities. For example, self-belief is at the core of most definitions, motivation is central to most as is persistence in achieving and the ability to deal with setbacks. As such, Mental Toughness is an umbrella term that entails positive psychological resources, which are crucial across a wide range of achievement contexts and in the domain of mental health. Clough and Strycharczyk (2015: 33) suggest that: Mental Toughness is a narrow plastic personality trait which explains in large part how individuals respond differently to the same or similar stressors, pressures, opportunities and challenges… irrespective of prevailing circumstances.