Compassionate Arts as a Spiritual Care Technology for Cancer Patients Interpreting the Lived Experience

Date
2016-08
Authors
Chapman, Bonnie Lorna
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Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina
Abstract

Identity is at risk in people facing a life altering illness such as cancer because of challenges to interpersonal relationships, physical functions, lifestyle routines, existential life views, and disempowering healthcare and cultural discourses, all of which may bring social isolation. The purpose of this research study was to understand the lived experience of eight co-researchers, women with breast cancer, ages 28-68, participating in a hospital based art studio program. Previous long-term studio participants with cancer voiced their stories prior to, and outside the context of this research study. The project was inspired by and grounded in respect for multiple realities and the complexity of the lived world. It is an interpretivist, qualitative approach that draws upon arts-based narrative inquiry research methods. Further, the participating co-researchers’ experiences are viewed through the autobiographical narrative arts-based research method of interviewing as painting in my artwork and interpretative writing as inquiry. Nonprobability, purposive sampling was employed to select individual cases in a specialized cancer population. Referrals were made by social workers, physiotherapists, oncologists, or through self-referral. Findings from the interviews with participating co-researchers indicate that patients, healthcare professionals, and society may benefit from a broader understanding of how some individuals experience physiological, psychological, and spiritual health through the compassionate arts. The arts process in this context serves as an innovative vehicle for creativity, positive identity reconstruction, meaning making, remembrance of the ecological self, naming discourses that limit agency, capacity building in community, and the greater mystery of life.

Description
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Regina. viii, 176 p.
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