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In Example 2 detailed above, the creative arts course which engages a small group of self‐selecting students with a number of creative enquiry workshops, their experience with the arts is similar. Students describe the value of engaging with the languages of the arts, connecting with emotions and with more personal ways of knowing. However, they also describe the challenges and vulnerability of making oneself more personally present, how they begin to learn with and from each other rather than engaging in a competitive manner, moving beyond seeking out the one right answer towards collaborative meaning‐making. Creative enquiry facilitates a therapeutic space through the improvisational and process focussed learning environment, through the silence and creative exploration as well as the resulting quality of student connection and sharing. These dimensions will be explored below.

Sharing creations with colleagues and engaging with unfamiliar creative media can feel challenging. Even for those with leanings towards the arts, it may have been a long time since medical students engaged with creative writing, clay work or visual art. At the start of the course students are often tentative, generally not knowing each other particularly well. The fear of failure and exposure is written about in their reflective journals:

I am very apprehensive about writing something creative [8]

The painting that we did was not as terrifying as I thought it might be… I have not drawn or painted anything for years … [8]

One student pointed out how difficult it was to share her first creative text with the group because being creative demanded some kind of investment of the self. As time goes on it may be that personal engagement in creative expression is what enriches the group. Addressing the fear of creative expression, we encourage movement away from an outcomes focus of trying to produce technical masterpieces, towards improvisatory and exploratory ways of working with materials [31].

One thing which I found the most amazing about creative arts therapy is that there is no right or wrong way to do something [32].

Barbara Hepworth, one of our best known British Sculptors describes that while her right hand is at work the left hand listens as it grips the stone, for ‘weaknesses, …flaws …or imminence of fractures’ [33]. This kind of focussed listening and engagement, termed ‘flow’ [34] was experienced in the group, where ‘each [was] consumed by what they were creating’.

One thing that really struck me about the process was how calming it was. There was no talking in the room for 20minutes because of how busy everyone was making their own art, and all you could hear was the rustling of materials or the gentle sound of pencil against paper. I felt like I was in a safe space [32].

As students feel safer, they progressively share more of themselves, elsewhere described as ‘vulnerable reflection’ [35]. A student image sketched other medical students as brightly coloured fish whilst she depicted herself as a small black fish at the bottom left hand corner of the painting. In their reflective journals other students wrote about their gratitude for her courage in sharing. Solidarity is built as they realise they are not alone.

I didn't expect to hear that other students felt out of their depth or like other people were more talented and bright than them so it was nice to discover I was not the only one. I didn't expect how open and honest everyone would be and it was refreshing [32].

Through collective meaning‐making and sharing, connections deepen. One participant described getting to know students better in this group over the last eight sessions, than he had other students over the last two years at medical school. Another student writes:

I remember writing lots that I felt privileged in the diary…because you don't usually get to see that side of people and I think it's a real honour when people decide that they feel comfortable enough or trust the group or you enough that they can open up like that [8].