A Comparison of Several Hospice Patients' Engagement in a Facilitated Creative Process with Descriptions of the Art of Dying in Ars Moriendi Texts
Melissa Bruce, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Cicely Saunders, the founder of modern hospice, treated hospice patients for their total pain, including its physical, emotional, social, and spiritual elements. To help patients attain the best quality of life possible, she provided them with palliative care to control their pain and to support them in their search for meaning at the end of life. She noted that hospice patients expressed their search for meaning in many ways, including sometimes in symbol and metaphor, and often in art and creativity. As such, she recognized that engagement in art and creativity could contribute to patients’ quality of life in dying.
This presentation, based on a paper in progress, discusses an interdisciplinary qualitative research study, the findings of which align with Saunders’ observations. During the study, the researcher, an artist-in-medicine in hospice, facilitated study participants’ engagement in the creative process in support of their search for meaning at the end of life. Over a period of weeks and/or months, participants created series of visual and written artworks that included figures and imagery, symbols and metaphors, through which they explored: their relationships with themselves, others, and/or God or the divine; what suffering and death meant to them; and what might serve as a source of hope for them. The study was embedded in a hermeneutic framework.
The study findings showed that engaging in the facilitated creative process over time supported participants in working through anxiety, sadness, despair, and lack of meaning and purpose toward resolving their suffering and finding meaning and hope in dying. The findings also showed that participants’ struggles in resolving their suffering in dying were similar to descriptions and depictions of individuals’ struggles in dying in the ars moriendi treatises of the Middle Ages. The ars moriendi, or “art of dying,” offered step-by-step instructions for how to die well and earn redemption to assure union with God in death. The moriens, or dying person, was instructed to draw strength from several inspirations to battle the temptations of faithlessness, despair, impatience, pride, and avarice successfully. Study participants experienced states of feeling and thought in dying similar to those described in the ars moriendi, and created a progression of symbols and metaphors in series of artworks that both expressed and helped shape their movement toward finding meaning and resolving their suffering in dying.
The presentation will focus on a discussion and comparison of the ars moriendi and the series of artworks and symbols that patients created as well as the meanings that they found in them, in their movement toward finding hope in dying. One or more case studies will be discussed.
Cicely Saunders, the founder of modern hospice, treated hospice patients for their total pain, including its physical, emotional, social, and spiritual elements. To help patients attain the best quality of life possible, she provided them with palliative care to control their pain and to support them in their search for meaning at the end of life. She noted that hospice patients expressed their search for meaning in many ways, including sometimes in symbol and metaphor, and often in art and creativity. As such, she recognized that engagement in art and creativity could contribute to patients’ quality of life in dying.
This presentation, based on a paper in progress, discusses an interdisciplinary qualitative research study, the findings of which align with Saunders’ observations. During the study, the researcher, an artist-in-medicine in hospice, facilitated study participants’ engagement in the creative process in support of their search for meaning at the end of life. Over a period of weeks and/or months, participants created series of visual and written artworks that included figures and imagery, symbols and metaphors, through which they explored: their relationships with themselves, others, and/or God or the divine; what suffering and death meant to them; and what might serve as a source of hope for them. The study was embedded in a hermeneutic framework.
The study findings showed that engaging in the facilitated creative process over time supported participants in working through anxiety, sadness, despair, and lack of meaning and purpose toward resolving their suffering and finding meaning and hope in dying. The findings also showed that participants’ struggles in resolving their suffering in dying were similar to descriptions and depictions of individuals’ struggles in dying in the ars moriendi treatises of the Middle Ages. The ars moriendi, or “art of dying,” offered step-by-step instructions for how to die well and earn redemption to assure union with God in death. The moriens, or dying person, was instructed to draw strength from several inspirations to battle the temptations of faithlessness, despair, impatience, pride, and avarice successfully. Study participants experienced states of feeling and thought in dying similar to those described in the ars moriendi, and created a progression of symbols and metaphors in series of artworks that both expressed and helped shape their movement toward finding meaning and resolving their suffering in dying.
The presentation will focus on a discussion and comparison of the ars moriendi and the series of artworks and symbols that patients created as well as the meanings that they found in them, in their movement toward finding hope in dying. One or more case studies will be discussed.