Healing Words: Poetry and Medicine
Encyclopedia
Healing Words: Poetry and Medicine is a sixty-minute documentary (ISBN 0-7936-9468-X) filmed in 2008 primarily at Shands at the University of Florida
Shands at the University of Florida
Shands at the University of Florida is a teaching hospital at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida and Jacksonville, Florida and is two of many hospitals in the Shands HealthCare system.-History:...
. The production portrays individuals in personal quest to recover psychologically and physically from illnesses that have dramatically changed their lives. This film validates expressive art in medical settings can build doctor-patient relationship
Doctor-patient relationship
The doctor-patient relationship is central to the practice of healthcare and is essential for the delivery of high-quality health care in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. The doctor-patient relationship forms one of the foundations of contemporary medical ethics...
s and be a supportive companion in the healing process.
Production
The Witter Bynner FellowshipWitter Bynner Fellowship
Witter Bynner Fellowships are administered by the Library of Congress and sponsored by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, an organization that provides grant support for poetry programs through nonprofit organizations. Fellows are chosen by the U.S...
, the LEAW Family Foundation, and the Grand Marnier Foundation provided the funding for the Healing Words Productions to complete the film. PBS Home Video
PBS Home Video
-Logos:Their first distinctive logo was a "Public Broadcasting Service" on the center of the screen, a sky. It was originally released in October 5, 1970...
, a department of the Public Broadcasting Service, currently distributes the production. The Society for Arts in Healthcare serves as a support system for physicians and therapists seeking creative, healing activities for critically ill patients. The Shands at the University of Florida
Shands at the University of Florida
Shands at the University of Florida is a teaching hospital at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida and Jacksonville, Florida and is two of many hospitals in the Shands HealthCare system.-History:...
is featured in the film and is the first hospital in the United States to fully support arts as an integral part of healing.
Overview
Each chapter of this film features people that are changing the wisdom and ways of healthcare. Three physicians from Shands Hospital are featured in the film: Rob Lawrence, a pediatrician; Michael Okum, a neurologist; and John Graham- Pole, a pediatrician and Hospice director. John Fox, author and certified poetry therapist, joins the team. These four men are combining forces to explore expressive arts in medical settings. It is their assertion that language can carry people from loss to hope. The men speak individually to the audience and also speak privately and in groups with patients. An eighteen-year-old young man with a bone marrowBone marrow
Bone marrow is the flexible tissue found in the interior of bones. In humans, bone marrow in large bones produces new blood cells. On average, bone marrow constitutes 4% of the total body mass of humans; in adults weighing 65 kg , bone marrow accounts for approximately 2.6 kg...
disease, an adolescent girl suffering from nine years of pain, a teenager with sickle-cell anemia, a cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
patient, and a heart disease
Heart disease
Heart disease, cardiac disease or cardiopathy is an umbrella term for a variety of diseases affecting the heart. , it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, accounting for 25.4% of the total deaths in the United States.-Types:-Coronary heart disease:Coronary...
patient are among the patients with whom the doctors visit and develop close relationships. The doctors also write and share poetry. In a reflective writing class, John Fox engages medical students in poetry, stating that arts and poetry can help medical persons look at their experiences of illnesses not just from a biomedical perspective but also from what an illness means human to human. The physician and the poet can both be healers, and this fact needs to be noticed by the medical field . Dr. Okum provides solid explanations about endorphins and how behavioral interactions can change the brain. Dr. Lawrence provides precious and passionate interactions with his patients. This film shows that compassion can flourish in a sterile environment.
Healing and Creative Processes
Poems are emotional opinions giving a voice to innermost joy and pain. Poems are inspirational, therapeutic, and healing. Most healing “lies in the recovery of a personal sense of meaning, that capacity which enables us to endure difficulties, to find and draw on unsuspected strength”. and creative processes are companions, yet they are perceived as separate. Art TherapyArt therapy
Because of its dual origins in art and psychotherapy, art therapy definitions vary. They commonly either lean more toward the ART art-making process as therapeutic in and of itself, "art as therapy," or focus on the psychotherapeutic transference process between the therapist and the client who...
proves itself as a valid process to help individuals of all ages resolve conflicts and problems, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness and achieve insight. Poetry can help a person get in touch with inner feelings and emotions in order to become oriented in his/her new situation.
Narrative Medicine
An effective caregiver brings to healing the fruits of science and technology a compassionate spirit- a spirit nurtured by the arts. PoetryPoetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
can help doctors become better healers in view of the fact that poems teach people to see the world from the emotional viewpoint of another person. The practice of medicine should be founded upon a philosophy that encompasses the whole range of human emotions. Americans are at a point where they are skeptical about the health care system
Health care system
A health care system is the organization of people, institutions, and resources to deliver health care services to meet the health needs of target populations....
. The doctor–patient relationship is remote, at best, in most cases. Research based on the phenomenon of narratives as agents of healing is of increasing significance in the fields of psychology and medicine. Narrative medicine
Narrative medicine
Narrative Medicine connotes a medicine practiced with narrative competence and marked with an understanding of the highly complex narrative situations among doctors, patients, colleagues, and the public.-History:...
can help nurses, doctors, social workers, and patients work together to mold a worthy and effective health care system
External links
- http://mainehumanities.org/podcast/wp-content/uploads/pods/mhc-24-masson.mp3
- http://artheals.org/start.html
- http://www.thesah.org.
- http://litmed.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=12937
- http://pbs.org/healingwords/
- http://www.poetryandmedicine.com/previews.html
- http://www.nea.gov/resources/accessibility/rlists/artsnhealthresources.html
- http://movingpoems.com/?s=veneta+mas