What role can the arts play in recovery? And how can realist approaches help us understand the deeper processes behind healing, identity, and lived experience?In this creative and thought-provoking conversation, Alejandro is joined by Dr Louisa Peters, a researcher who brings together psychology, community arts, and realist thinking. Louisa’s work draws on her background in musicology, community arts practice, and her PhD research exploring recovery in serious mental illness.Louisa shares how realist approaches allowed her to movebeyond asking “does it work?” to exploring how and why arts-based interventions support recovery. She highlights how community arts create safe, trusting spaces that promote coping, acceptance, and positive emotional engagement, while also acknowledging the complexity and non-linear nature of recovery.Drawing on her research, Louisa discusses innovative methods such as arts elicitation interviews, poetry, and visual approaches, showing how creative expression can uncover mechanisms that are difficult to articulate. She also reflects on navigating complexity in realist research through mapping,causal loop diagrams, and embracing a flexible, adaptive approach.Whether you’re a researcher, clinician, or interested in theintersection of arts and health, this episode offers rich insights into embracing complexity, valuing lived experience, and using realist thinking to explore meaningful change.

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