Creative Forces® Creative Arts Café: a theory-based creative performance framework for military-connected populations with traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder

Creative arts therapies integrated into interdisciplinary care supports treatment optimization of military-connected individuals with traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress disorder, and related health concerns. This paper explores the use of creative performance in interdisciplinary treatment that includes art therapy, dance/movement therapy, and/or music therapy through literature review and discusses implications for physiological, psychological, and psychosocial rehabilitation. It presents an applied model – the Creative Forces Creative Arts Café (CF-CAC) – used with patients receiving creative arts therapies as standard care at military treatment facilities across the United States. A theoretically informed CF-CAC framework provides a structured approach to utilizing creative performance as a clinical tool to support treatment goals and includes guidance for preparation, implementation, and post-experience processing. Core concepts of creative performance that underpin the CF-CAC are informed by creative arts therapies research, social health and human performance models, neurologic theory, and strengths-based approaches that encourage patient engagement, increase treatment adherence, support goal attainment, invite staff collaboration, and promote familial and community engagement. Considerations for facilitating the CF-CAC using virtual platforms to meet the continued demand for tele-connection are discussed. Standardized health measures for formally evaluating the CF-CAC to inform long-term sustainable gains from engagement in creative performance are recommended.