Book review - Craft Psychology

When I first saw the title "Craft Psychology", I thought this sounded really interesting ... what was craft psychology?
Let's talk about the book by Dr. Anne Kirketerp that was published in English this year.

Kirketerp was already a craftsperson and a craft teacher before becoming a psychologist and working in academia.
Today she runs certified educational courses in craft psychology.
The book isn't just aimed at professionals who use craft in teaching or psychology, but also crafters like you and me who are interested in using their craft more intentionally to achieve well-being.

There are ten chapters:
1. Craft psychology in a nutshell
2. Definitions of and connections between craft and well-being
3. The Craft Psychology Model
4. Central Research Findings in Craft Psychology
5. Methods and exercises
6. Four ways to craft
7. Graduation and Interventions
8. From Utility to Passion: The Role of Crafts Now and Through History
9. Theoretical Foundation of Craft Psychology
10. Brief Summary 

"Craft psychology is the psychology of why people craft. It identifies how craft activities have positive effects on our physical and mental health. It can be used intentionally to effectively promote well-being."
Kirketerp notes that her "focus is primarily the hobby-based work that we do out of pure desire, because we love it and are good at it".

How do you even define craft? There are several definitions by researchers from different fields. Kirketerp herself defines it as "a mastery of passion-driven skills, resulting in products with some form of materiality". Other researchers use the words "skilled", "mastering manual skills", "to do a job well".

Maybe I'm influenced by artists telling people that making art is important and it doesn't have to be good art all the time to learn how to impress yourself and am transferring that thought to craft, but I don't necessarily agree on the "mastery".
No one is good at the beginning (except prodigies), so they are either unhappy with it and drop it altogether or they enjoy doing it so much that they don't care if it's "good" , and they may get better at it or not. I should know what I'm talking about 😉 Sometimes the moment just needs to be right for picking up the right craft.

As you may be able to tell from the chapter titles, this book really isn't about crafting itself, but the psychology behind it. If you like textbooks, you won't have a problem with that, but I have to admit that there were passages I was tempted to skip - I didn't - and others that were interesting because they explained my own behavior or feelings about or during crafting which I simply hadn't thought to analyze before, such as enjoying to get in the "flow", but also feeling like an outsider at my last crafting class some years ago (didn't finish it, never had the urge to join another one).

Kirketerp also explains her Craft Psychology Model showing how benefits of crafting, such as positive emotions, flow, achievement and more, can support well-being and shield against stress and angst, for example.
There are a lot of quotes from other researchers as well explaining different psychological theories or terms. The articles are referenced in the extensive bibliography.

What I had hoped for was a little less theory because some of it was really too repetitive for me.
There are bubbles with quotes from people Kirketerp interviewed, but there are outside of the text itself, without any comment. What I would have liked to see would have been those examples with explanations or some kind of relation between theoretical and empirical data.

I also found it disappointing that only a few crafts were mentioned, the bubbles were mostly about knitting, for example. I used to be an avid knitter for years when I was younger, and in my opinion you can't just compare knitting to any other craft 1:1. That starts with not every project being portable, but also with the setup, with how many tools you need or what size, and it also has an influence on the idea people have of the "meaningfulness" of a craft. 
There is a list of examples of crafts (to be honest, "lubricating brakes" was a surprising one to me) of which not many are mentioned in the text itself.
The author concentrated on the crafts she's doing herself, I get that, but from the title I had expected more.

The book is not that difficult a read, though, even if you are not familiar with psychological research - which isn't a topic I had delved into that much about before - so you can definitely pick up some interesting facts that may make you understand things better.
For me one of those was the explanation of Default Mode Network (DMN) and Central Executive Network (CEN) - two of the brain's networks - which told me why my brain insists on going through everything embarrassing I did since I was 4 if I can't sleep at 2 a.m.

The author also gives you a few recommendations on how to use your craft intentionally. They won't be working for everyone, I know two of them don't for me anymore, but they are interesting nevertheless.
One of them - and actually that was what first caught my attention when the book was announced - is to have at least ten projects going at the same time which differ from each other in the level of challenge or purpose or surroundings (something to work on when you are alone or with others), so you can always pick the perfect one for the moment. If I have that many, they become WIPs that might never get finished. I have the infamous WIP drawer to corroborate that, but maybe I could make them count as part of the ten ...

Kirketerp also recommends not just doing coupled activities meaning you shouldn't always have the TV running - something I do although I usually just block it out once I get into the flow - or an audiobook, etc. while you are crafting.

I'm ambivalent towards the book. I enjoyed reading parts of it, others not so much because they were too theoretical and repetitive for my personal liking.
I would have been interested in some things that are missing (I admit that some of this interest is based on my own experiences, for example that of wanting to craft, but not being able to do it anymore the way I'd like to, and the consequences from that ... sorry if you feel I'm droning on about my thumb, but this has been a massive change for me). I also would have liked to see more crafts covered.

That is just my personal opinion. I don't regret reading the book, but I also don't think I would want to read it again. Maybe I should have made some notes while reading it to keep those, but that's something I'm notoriously bad at, at least with private reading.