This research project incorporates a series of mindfulness and contemplative workshops withinthe established curriculum of an advanced art studio methods course for pre-service arteducators. Educational research studies suggest that individuals who complete a mindfulnesscourse of study experience increased mental and physical stamina; enhanced memory retention;and decreased irritability, anxiety, depression, and chronic stress. Research also indicates thatindividuals who practice mindfulness have improved relationships and bolstered immunesystems (Williams & Penman, 2012. These studies suggest that mindfulness training can makepositive contributions to teaching and learning, enabling teachers and students to perform at theirbest capacity in their respective roles. Many studies hypothesized that mindfulness trainingwould enhance student well-being and learning in particular. The hypothesis of the current studywas that an arts-integrated mindfulness curriculum will enhance student learning, art practice,and attitudes toward teaching and learning. This was an exploratory study designed to investigatepossible connections between art-making and mindfulness.

The aim of the study is to identify and map the process of transformation of the practice of a mental health nurse from everyday practice to desirable practice (that is, the realisation of mental health Recovery) through self-inquiry into a series of narratives derived from that practice. Recovery is desirable in terms of clinical governance and is also desirable practice for mental health nurses as a standard to which they should practice. A series of reflexive narratives signposted the transformative journey and also captured the lived experience of transformation. Experiences from practice were captured as spontaneous stories. Guided reflection obtained insights from these stories, and the insights derived from the stories were subsequently reflexively deepened by inquiring into them. In time the cues in the model of guided reflection became internalized to the extent that practitioner narratives arose that already embedded insights. Self-inquiry into these practitioner narratives indicated the nature and the felt affect of constraints met within practice. The affect of these constraints upon the individual practitioner and upon the ability of the individual practitioner to achieve desirable practice is indicated by self-inquiry into them. The result of the study was the realisation that transformation is unable to take place without the individual practitioner being fully aware of who one is, in order that s/he may effect transformation and change. Whilst self-inquiry into the narratives indicated the constraints upon the individual practitioner, the psychological unpreparedness also indicated by that self-inquiry indicated why that the tension between the reality of practice and desirable practice could not be adequately explored. The thesis takes the form of a narrative about writing narratives. The narratives illustrate the norms and values that affect individual practice both vertically (that is, from the organisation and the government), and horizontally (that is, from colleagues and managers), and how an individual practitioner experiences these as obstructive to delivering the service they desire. There have been no narratives written by practitioners about the journey to realise Recovery in their practice; and the structure of the narratives as performances is unique to this subject of thesis by a mental health nurse.

This research project investigates images from the contemporary Australian mid-life psyche, exploring the contribution to individual transformation made through the creation of, and reflective engagement with, personal imagery. Asking the question: 'What do contemporary Australian mid-life males consider to be a rich and sustaining inner life?' This project documents the visual images, descriptions, and reflections of a group of five participants, discussing the individuals' experiences of aesthetic self-inquiry with reference to divergent theories of psychology, art therapy and philosophy of aesthetics.