Crafts as a way to functional mental health

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Pöllänen, S. 2006. Crafts as a way to functional mental health. In: A-L. Rauma, S. Pöllänen &
P. Seitamaa-Hakkarainen. (Eds.) Human perspectives on sustainable future. Joensuun
yliopisto. Joensuun yliopiston kasvatustieteiden tiedekunnan tutkimuksia No: 99, 130–135.
Crafts as a way to functional mental health
Sinikka Pöllänen
University of Joensuu, Savonlinna Department of Teacher Education
The aim of the study was to explore the role of craft in the well-being of those people who
have had it as a leisure activity for years. Crafts as a hobby seem to be a resource of self-
empowerment that is dependent on the subject’s own goals. The study indicates that craft as
an intentional activity can be a way to life management and well-being. Ordinary craft, which
can consist of copying a pattern or a model or following given instructions, and holistic craft
that involve creative self-expression, design and problem solving, appear to have different
roles and functions in maintaining functional mental health.
1 Introduction
Life management is usually considered an important factor in guiding a person’s life course.
Life management means the ability to face different transitions, problems and stressful
situations in such a way that minimises stressful experiences and feelings and preserves hope
for the future. Thus, life management is considered an aspect of social sustainability.
The concept of life management has been concretized by talking about psychological well-
being and mental health (Sohlman, 2004). Lazarus and Folkman (1984) also talk about
coping, estimating one’s resources and ways to manage a given situation to minimise stress.
Such methods can be more or less active, and can entail problem solving or various agony-
and stress-reducing and mind-calming activities. Csikszentmihalyi (1991) also discusses life
management with reference to the concept of flow. In everyday life, this is the continuous
construction and maintenance of one's self-knowledge and self esteem by examining one's
abilities and possibilities, developing skills and finding activities well suited to one's
tendencies.

2 Research methods
The aim of the study was to explore the role of craft in the well-being of those people who
have had it as a leisure activity for years. The research is based on free essays written by 60
women between 19–84 years of age. The essays were written in response to a request
published in five small provincial newspapers in Finland. The main task was to write about
the meaning of craft as a hobby in one's life. The data was analysed using qualitative content
analysis, helped by ATLAS.ti.
3 Results
Crafts play a significant role in the everyday life of the women in the essays. They are not a
crucial part of their external life management to satisfy the need for artefacts or financial
surviving. Instead, we can talk about internal life management in terms of the need for self-
realisation or constructing one’s life through working with one’s hands. The women describe
crafts and their benefits in many ways. Success in making things by hand is rewarding on such
a deep level that it creates a desire to do something similar again. The women describe the
finished products and the process of their production with pride, as if it were an image of
oneself. Since the self is formed by meanings (Taylor, 1996), we can conclude that the women
are describing the construction of their experienced self-image as craftswomen.
The essays show that holistic craft is not the primary reason all of the writers have crafts as a
hobby. Designing and problem solving play a minimal role, especially in crafts made by
housewives or elderly people, because designing is difficult and housewives lack the necessary
leisure time. The product is more important than actually the making process. It is essential that
the product is made for the home or for someone close. The human relationship this involves
makes the actual production of the object more meaningful, even when it includes copying
instructions or ready-made models. The reason for doing ordinary craft can also be connected
to the women’s life politics, the experience of spending time productively (see
Metsämuuronen, 1995; Heikkinen, 1997) or to the notion that women’s leisure is often
connected with chores, relationships or experiences (see Roberts, 2003). It may therefore be
concluded that crafts made for the benefit of others, but dedicated to one’s own pleasure, is a
form of allowed selfishness, a legitimate joy and leisure as described by Henderson (1991),
Centergran (1996) and Heikkinen (2000). In the middle of everyday routines, crafts seem to
equip the women with resources supporting the role of the provider.

The role of craft in sustaining life management and mental health is evident in the essays. This
kind of peace of mind is provided by the activity, the materials and the finished or unfinished
products. From a social point of view, it is interesting to note that most of the women need
solitude. This is just the opposite to what Metsämuuronen (1995) and Heikkinen (1997) have
described concerning women’s crafts and social relationships. In this study, the need for
solitude is not dependent on the person's skills. The need for solitude can be explained in two
ways: relaxation or the need to analyse different phases in one’s life from a new perspective.
The essays point out that both ordinary and holistic craft can have elements that create a sense
of life management by allotting quiet time to intellectual work.
The essays express life span developmental tasks and transitions in life course as the women
describe how craft help them understand life, the future and the past over generations. The
purpose of life usually appears in everyday situations and inadvertently, not in abstract
discussions (Saarenheimo, 2003). To perceive and analyse reality is also to evaluate one’s own
life and values. Evaluation provides an opportunity for shaping personal aims, estimating their
outcome and, finally, searching for explanations for the cause of events. Crafts had prepared
these women for the subsequent attainment of their goals, guided their future actions and helped
achieve a sense of control and management of their lives and environment. Crafts helped them
feel fully functional as a person, especially where all other areas of life had been
uncontrollable.
Physical and bodily experiences are seldom mentioned in discussions about mental health,
even if the context is occupational therapy. The significance of bodily experiences, however, is
quite evident in the essays. Feelings of agony can be pushed away and turned into bodily
activity. Materials, equipment, techniques and one's hands obeying one’s will can also impart a
feeling of control. Making things by hand is described as helping to analyse the scattered state
of affairs and create a calming moment. Contentedness from doing and success strengthens the
self-acting identity. Thus the self can get new perspectives.
4 Conclusions
Crafts as a hobby increase the feeling of empowerment. The essays show that craft contribute
to the women's feeling of personal integrity and have helped them construct roles and
identities in their life context. The leisure activity has served as a means to self-expression,
learning about the self and gaining a sense of personal worth and autonomy. The role of craft
as a hobby seems to increase and make visible resources dependent on the subject’s own
goals. Craft is not only meaningful as an instrument in the search for well-being, however.
The essays include narrative themes such as the ethos of managing (see Kortteinen, 1992): it

is hard to survive, one tries to cope, one has survived and is proud of it. Crafts are women's
deeds: making crafts has meant sacrifices; it has been time consuming and demanding.
Crafts also appear in the essays as something all the writers want to master, because it gives
them a sense of enhanced life management and well-being. In this sense, craft can lead to
functional mental health (see Sohlman, 2004) as it minimise exposure to stress and reinforce
positive illusions about the self, one’s control, and the future. Such illusions are especially
useful in circumstances that can be expected to produce depression or lack of motivation and
helplessness (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Craft therefore seem to have been a protective factor
between negative experiences and positive mental health for these women. Crafts as a hobby
can be seen as a coping strategy when reactions caused by the fast pace of life and threatening
life situations have been directed to the conscious mind through craft.
Holistic craft as a means of self-expression have brought the women deep feelings of
happiness like in flow (see Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). It has helped create and sustain the
women’s self image while protecting the ego as escapism in the case of some big loss or
providing ego-uniting experiences in a question of creative improvement and self-expression.
Ordinary craft can not, on the other hand, be associated with the concept of flow, but it can be
associated in the happy stress experience (Frankenhaeuser, 1999), because making a new
artefact, learning a new technique or making variations on a pattern, can all make one feel one
has succeeded. We can suppose that ordinary craft can be used as a source of positive stress
experiences, because a person interested in craft can thus measure his or her ability so as to
successfully finish the making process. Positive stress in ordinary craft has enhanced the sense
of time management in everyday life as well as throughout life. Relaxation, better moods and
satisfaction in ordinary craft has meant recreation for the women. Flow or happy stress can be
an experience in which one can have abilities and possibilities, develop new skills and hold
activities which are in good balance with his or her tendencies. We may conclude that ordinary
and holistic craft seem to have different roles as a self-directed way to maintain functional
mental health while creating a good life and a sustainable future.
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