Using found poetry to illuminate the existential and posttraumatic growth of women with breast cancer engaging in art therapy

ABSTRACT

Arts-based research (ABR) is an expanding methodological genre, which adapts the tenets of the creative arts to make social science research accessible, evocative, and engaging. It crosses the boundaries of both art and science, but has made few inroads within the discipline of psychology. This article describes a pilot project examining how art-making shaped the trajectories of women diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. Using ABR as a way of distilling the findings, we demonstrate how experiences of existential and posttraumatic growth can be understood more intensely and profoundly through found poetry. Found poems (excerpts from interviews reframed as poetry) offer a richer, more meaningful, and potent evocation of themes than traditional coding categories. Poetry permits the voice of the participant to be more clearly heard and allows the reader to access deeper insights and understandings of the complexities of growth through adversity.

KEYWORDS:

• Arts-based research
• art therapy
• breast cancer
• existential growth
• found poems
• posttraumatic growth
• poetry
• women

Notes

1. Since these found poems are derived from interview transcripts created by a member of the research team, we contend that these poems create a third voice, one that is neither the interviewee nor the researcher, but a combination of both (Glesne 1997).

2. A chapbook is a small collection of poetry, generally no more than 40 pages, centered on a specific theme, and frequently self-published.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rosemary C. Reilly

Rosemary C. Reilly is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences and Graduate Program Director of the MA program in Human Systems Intervention at Concordia University in Montréal. Her research interests focus on the use of qualitative, arts-based and contemplative methods in researching adversity, and the impact of trauma on individuals and communities. She also investigates both individual and social creativity and posttraumatic growth.

Virginia Lee

Dr. Virginia Lee is Interim Senior Nursing Research Consultant at the McGill University Health Centre and Assistant Professor at the Ingram School of Nursing in McGill University. Her research focuses on the study and evaluation of supportive care interventions to manage the existential crisis of cancer and improve quality of life across all phases of the cancer patient experience.

Kate Laux

Kate Laux is an art therapist and arts-based researcher, who founded the art therapy program at Cedars CanSupport in 2010 by creating an open art studio for patients in oncology. Kate recently relocated to Ithaca NY, where she co-founded Open Art Hive by partnering with local non-profit organizations to bring free and inclusive open art studios to different communities. She currently works for the Mental Health Association of Tompkins County.

Andréanne Robitaille

Andréanne Robitaille is the Cedars CanSupport program director at the McGill University Health Centre since 2014. Cedars CanSupport provides free, humanitarian support to cancer patients and their families, from their time of diagnosis and treatment, through post-treatment, and when necessary end of life. Andréanne is a Registered nurse, with a Baccalaureate and Masters degree in Nursing and is a PhD student at Université de Montréal.