Healing with the Arts: A 12-Week Program to Heal Yourself and Your Community

“In our art and healing method, you are the artist-healer; you learn how to do the process yourself,” assert authors Samuels (The Well Body Book) and Lane (Creative Healing). Their program requires no theory or therapist—“Art truly becomes your medicine”—though their statement, “Just as everyone is a healer, everyone has an Inner Artist,” is both hopeful and daunting. With a week-by-week breakdown, the authors encourage “guided imagery” exercises; profile pioneers in the field of arts-in-medicine like dancer Inna Dagman; and share inspiring stories of people who’ve gone through their programs—including Samuels’s own “sculpting the cancer away” story, and a heartbreaking tale of a mother who learned to dance with her dying daughter. They also suggest weekly projects. Though the authors illustrate how their program can be uplifting, the “science” remains subjective and New Age-y—they claim that making “art with the intent to heal” shifts the practitioner from a physiology of stress and anxiety to one of healing. Still, their call to use the arts—and an open heart—to relieve suffering may be a useful adjunct for healthcare workers and anyone else who wants to explore alternative approaches to treating illness. (Nov.)