A cancer diagnosis brings with it an avalanche of emotions. Prime among them are ones that most people would assume like shock, sadness, and fear. But there are so many more types of emotions, and layers of nuance to each of them, experienced by survivors and caregivers. These include anticipatory grief, clarity, guilt or shame, gratitude, anger, courage, disorientation, surrender, betrayal, hope, and countless others. Moreover, it is not uncommon for people to rapidly cycle between opposite emotions in the span of hours or days. It can be overwhelming to try and process them all, while simultaneously enduring the painful and exhausting experience of surgery, chemotherapy, and/or radiation.
Everyone needs an outlet for these emotions, and help to try and make meaning out of a situation that they did not ask for and over which they have very little control. Opportunities like support groups and psychotherapy can provide significant comfort and relief toward this goal. Yet, not everyone feels comfortable sharing their feelings with a group of relative strangers or has access to a cancer-competent therapist (or any therapist at all for that matter). Even for those that do plug into these mainstays of psychological support, their emotional world may still continue to overwhelm them and they would benefit from an additional outlet or different type of coping skill.
At Twist Out Cancer, we strongly believe that missing piece of the support puzzle is the therapeutic power of the arts! Art has been used around the world for healing of the mind, body, and soul since the early 1000s and modern science has proven its positive impact for people impacted by cancer. Therapeutic art making has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, pain, attention and memory problems, as well as improve overall quality of life in cancer patients.1, “How exactly does this work,” you may ask yourself? Well, science is still studying this, but so far we understand that the act of making art allows us to go deeper into our creative unconscious mind and express things we may have a hard time putting into coherent spoken words; organize confusing thoughts or feelings to start making meaning out of them; and ultimately be able to “imagine a more hopeful future.” Physiologically, it also lowers the stress hormone cortisol and activates the reward centers in our brain1, which is why people can truly feel a difference in their bodies and moods after a therapeutic art-making session.
Both our Twistshops and Brushes with Cancer programs harness not only this incredible power of art, but they also provide the added benefits of community and storytelling. Twistshop participants are invited to share with their group about the image they created and have their experience validated by others, reducing their sense of isolation. And over the many months that our Brushes’ Inspirations and Artists work together, Inspirations have the opportunity for intentional self-reflection to shape and transform the script living in their heads about their cancer experience. The recounting of this story to an empathic witness is another type of expressive arts called “narrative pratice,” and it helps survivors and co-survivors to gain hope, confidence, power, and motivation. This is part of why you often see our Inspirations rendered speechless and crying joyful tears when they lay eyes on their Artist’s finished piece for the first time – seeing that story reflected back to them is deeply profound and makes them feel seen and understood by the world again.
Written By Ana Gordon, LCSW, OSW-C, Twist Out Cancer’s Clinical Director
References
1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jons.2017.12.003
2 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1687521
3 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07421656.2019.1667670
4 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07421656.2016.1166832
5 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7104641/