Healing Through Art Therapy

In 2014, Rebecca Langley was diagnosed with lymphoma and kidney cancer.

"My initial reaction to it was that I was going to die, that I was a dead woman walking. It is one of those words that we fear so much, even to this day, because I never thought that I would get cancer," says Rebecca.

Rebecca struggled with depression and was simply unable to get off of the couch, she says.

However, while receiving treatment at Cleveland Clinic's Taussig Cancer Institute she happened to wander into the Art Therapy room and met Lisa Shea, an art therapist in the program who is also a cancer survivor.

"We just had a conversation at first and she kind of told me about some of the things that they did and then she mentioned about painting on silk. I thought maybe I'll just give it a shot and it turned out to be the best thing I could have done here," Rebecca says.

Rebecca quickly discovered that she had an aptitude for painting.

"It was the doing. It's the process that was very important in my healing. I owe a huge debt of gratitude... to all of those people and the resources that you have for making my experience here a very positive one."

"She experimented and developed her own techniques. She would really get into the zone when she was working, like she would totally be absorbed in the art," according to Lisa.

The process allowed Rebecca to stop focusing on the cancer and helped begin the healing process.

"All those dark places I had gone, all the worry, all the things that I was concerned about went away," says Rebecca.

After 6 months of chemotherapy, Rebecca is now in remission.

"I think having these sorts of services... art therapy, music therapy, concerts, things like that are definitely important factors in how our patients handle this stressful time in their lives," says Dr. Mitchell Smith, a member of the Hematology Oncology department at the Taussig Cancer Institute.

"It was the doing. It's the process that was very important in my healing. I owe a huge debt of gratitude... to all of those people and the resources that you have for making my experience here a very positive one," Rebecca says.