Places We Practice • 225study conducted demonstrated that art therapy reduced pain and anxiety in cancer patients,
as well as fatigue.^6
The National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine, which is part of the
National Institutes of Health, recognized art therapy as an alternative or complementary
therapy in 1993. A recent well-designed study of mindfulness-based art therapy for cancer
patients demonstrated that the intervention led to decreased symptoms of distress and sig-
nificant improvement in key aspects of health-related quality of life.^7 Similarly, Alternative
Therapies in Health & Medicine (www.alternative-therapies.com) invited papers in the cre-
ative arts therapies.
As noted in Chapter 2, one of the most rapidly developing areas in the past few decades
has been arts medicine. The Society for the Arts in Healthcare is comprised of physicians,
nurses, artists, and arts therapists. The delivery of the arts to patients of all ages in medical
hospitals (Rollins, 2004) has dramatically increased with the development of artist in resi-
dence programs (Rollins & Mahan, 1996) as well as the field of child life.
Art therapists have been reporting for some time on the use of art for release, solace,
and healing, since Adrian Hill’s pioneering work in sanatoriums on Art Versus Illness (Hill,
1945) and Painting Out Illness (Hill, 1951) (DVD 10.3). Art therapist Suzanne Lovell got
better by fighting her illness through movement and art, telling her story in a video (Lovell,
1990), and describing the method in a book chapter (Lovell in Virshup, 1993). You can see
and hear her telling part of her story on the DVD (A).
Artist Darcy Lynn battled her lymphoma with her art, making drawings in intensive care
after surgery—and during the long process of pain, fear, hope, and recovery (B). Art thera-
pist Wendy Miller (C), who runs an integrative arts medicine studio, wrote a pamphlet for
medical personnel about the self-therapy through art that Lynn had accomplished (Miller,
1996). You can hear and see both of them on the DVD.
In 1993, organ transplant recipients from all over the country were invited to submit
artwork done before and after their surgery to a competition called “Art for Life” sponsored
by a Pittsburgh pharmacy. As a judge for the exhibit, I had the good fortune to see all of the
work submitted, which was unbelievably powerful. Even more persuasive were the words
of the artists that accompanied the slides (D). I came away convinced, like many of them,
that making art had accelerated their recovery. Perhaps it was because the physiological
transformation they had gone through—from dying to living—was so vividly reflected by
similarly dramatic transformations in their art.
Art Therapy for Terminal Illness
Patients who are dying are usually dependent on caregivers, so that taking charge of art
materials and creating their own images can restore a sense of efficacy—at a time when they
are otherwise helpless (DVD 10.4). We do not know to what extent art therapy can affect the
progression of a terminal illness, but we do know that creating something new—when the
world of the self is shrinking—is beneficial. Roger, an AIDS patient in an era before medica-
tions were effective, talks about his art therapy (A).
In clinics, hospitals, and hospices, even in their homes, people of all ages who are facing
deterioration and death are being helped to cope by drawing, painting, and sculpting (Pratt
& Wood, 1998; Rogers, 2007; Waller, 2007).
In addition to helping a dying patient to master his feelings through making art, the
therapist plays a special role at a time “when art is all there is.” By helping a person to
cope with the illness while not being involved with the medical treatment, the art therapist