Congress Abstracts 2003

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DEVELOPING A COMPREHENSIVE ART THERAPY PROGRAM. Shannon Scott, MA, ATR-BC, and Karen Hammelef, RN, MS, CS, University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, MI.

The National Institute of Health’s Office of Alternative Medicine recognizes art therapy as a creative modality, which helps patients cope with chronic illness through mind-body intervention. Although patients often have a verbal or medical explanation of their illness, they frequently do not have the means to interpret the nonverbal or intuitive explanation. When words fail to express overwhelming feelings, art offers the opportunity to find new ways of communication through visual means. Focused on self-expression, patients are able to explore, release, and learn to understand the source of their emotional distress. With this theoretical background in mind, an art therapist was funded in 1997 to provide weekly group therapy sessions to adult outpatients at this National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center. In the five years since its initial funding, the art therapy program has developed into a comprehensive program providing services to adult and pediatric inpatients and outpatients. Comprehensive services include individual and family therapy sessions and 8-week group therapy sessions for patients, which focus on improved self-awareness, concerns related to illness, and feelings that are difficult to express. The program also supports art therapy on the bone marrow transplant unit, an “art cart” for the chemotherapy infusion areas and a survivor’s art gallery in the cancer center. The art therapist collaborates with all other psychosocial disciplines within the cancer center and is a member of the psycho-oncology program.

Through strategic efforts in philanthropy and marketing, the program has been solely and successfully funded by directed donations since its inception. This presentation will include an overview of the program’s five-year history, including development and marketing strategies, building collaborative relationships, and pitfalls and challenges experienced.