“Expressive therapy… I did not know what expressive therapy was in the beginning and my first day I was a little nervous and Maureen and Donna calmed me, you know, it was so warm and comforting and I could not wait for the next Thursday to come. So it has been a very rewarding experience for me.”
“This therapeutic experience was nice having someone else to talk to. I talk about my illness 24/7. Some people want to listen and some people do not. But coming here, expressing myself creatively, talking to Maureen, it was beautiful. It was beautiful and I really enjoyed it.”
“Well it was interesting because it was the first time that I ever did anything like this. It was calming because you calm right down and take your time to concentrate and focus on what is the topic that you are dealing with and you try to find the right things that represent what you are feeling at the time in regards to the topic for the day. And exciting because when you are all finished it looks so good” (patient giggles).
“I really am… (the patient seemed to being holding back tears) there’s no words. The creative therapy is just so nice and I really love it.”
“The creative therapy was good because when you are dealing with stress then it was appropriate to really calm you and take your mind off of the worries and anything that may stress you that the illness may bring on and cause you to be anxious. So just for the time it takes your mind off of everything and you can focus on just what is being done at the time.”
“When I would be in so much pain from my illness the expressive process took my pain away completely and it made me feel better. It really made me feel better. I liked it. I want to do it again, be creative. There is a lot of love my creative productions, a lot of love. I did not think that I could do it but here it is, finished. I want to thank Donna and Maureen and thank my Lord Jesus for helping me do this. Thank you Jesus.”
"I first started off with; I was not crazy about being expressive. That’s the truth. And so when, each time Maureen would give me a topic, I would be like, okay, let me try to think this out. But, magically and I don’t know what it is when I would start shifting through the pictures and the patterns, just different words and pictures would jump out at me and call my name. They would just jump to me. I am pleased with my book because each time that she would say, do you want to change something? No. That my art is Me! It is earth. Nature. Support systems. It’s Me.”
“It should be from the first, beginning when they are finding out that they have a terminal illness. (participant starts to cry again) It should be offered then and maybe it would be another way to understand like I did not under stand it. Art therapy… to have someone there that could say, okay you heard all of the things that the doctor told you but I am going to be here with this to make it easier on you. This is something that you have to do. I was walking around for over a year balled up in knots about so many things and stuff and just in the last couple of months this has been something that you want to get to. Because you know that all of that other stuff, your house, your kids, your car, your life is not there at the time that you are doing this. Not even realizing that this is going to be the end result. You see I was seeing a psychologist and it doesn’t compare to this. They ask one question and then type it up and then time is up and they are pushing you out the door and it did not give me any good feeling. They did not have pretty things and stuff. This is not just for a cancer patient. This could be for anybody. Anybody and everybody needs it. People don’t understand art therapy. I want to show people my book. It will be a conversation piece. The time doing it was so nice and then time is up but then you are still thinking about the pictures and the thought of it on different things. The back of the book has a lot of meaning. The rose, love and life and then the cancer and between those things you still can smile.”
“When I knew I got up in the morning, you know just coming to the treatment, you are not going to be happy just sitting here all day but I had something to look forward to. I got tried of doing my puzzles and television does not interest me. Doing this therapy made it seem like I was putting my life together and bringing back memories from when I was not sick, when I could go outside and walk, go to the park and look at the animals and watch the people.”