New England’s many labs, hospitals, and treatment centers have long been at the forefront of medical innovation. Area researchers work around the clock to make progress on cancer treatments, vaccines, and much more. The same can be said about the region’s rich artistic community.

At the intersection of medicine and the arts is a growing, research-backed tool in health care and cultural institutions across the region. Art therapy — a form of psychotherapy involving the encouragement of free self expression through painting, drawing, or modeling — already has a strong, yet under-the-radar, foothold.

“Ever since I started [practicing art therapy], I’ve been consistently amazed at how creativity can really support people in all sorts of healing processes — ones that I could never even have imagined,” says Megan Carleton, a board-certified art therapist with the Zakim Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI).

“I’ve been consistently amazed at how creativity can really support people in all sorts of healing processes.”
– Megan Carleton, art therapist with the Zakim Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

What is art therapy?

The broad term “art therapy” has a wide range of niche practices. From drawing or painting with watercolors to visiting a museum, there are countless ways patients can enjoy the world while undergoing intensive medical treatments and recovering from debilitating diseases.

For Carleton, it’s a routine of both virtual and in-person sessions built around meeting the patient in their own comfort zone. Basic doodles have shown to help reduce stress, while group and individual sound baths are one of the more social ways art therapy can bring patients together. Journaling programs offer patients an opportunity to let their thoughts out in the most direct way possible — with their words.

“I try to think about what their pain points are,” Carleton says. “What’s going on in their lives that’s creating some discomfort, and then what are they looking for?”

Carleton has seen the way art therapy can heal beyond just those at DFCI who have a penchant for creativity. From 2015 to 2019, she held art therapy group sessions at Massachusetts General Hospital with veterans and their family members. They were given paper masks that were already formed, and were instructed to illustrate it with collage materials to show how they felt.

“By the end of these sessions, they created some really profound pieces that spoke to them,” Carleton says. “They’d say ‘I can’t believe I’m crying over arts and crafts.’”

To some, treatment options may seem linear. Cancer diagnoses require chemotherapy, or post-traumatic stress disorder necessitates talk therapy. Those methods are tried and true, but some patients may not realize they can also tap into the arts in addition to standard treatments.

But one patient has, and art therapy has made a tremendous impact on her life.

Barbra’s story

“I almost died a few times from my treatment,” says Barbra Tugman. The triple-negative breast cancer survivor originally from New York, now living in Fall River, Mass., after 15 years in Boston (and a few jaunts in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,), comes from a family history of cancer victims. She was first diagnosed at the age of 57 in December 2009.

Unsatisfied with the treatment prospects down in Florida, she traveled north to New England seeking solace in Boston’s storied cancer treatment institutions. She found herself at DFCI, where the staff made her feel more like a friend than a patient.

“We were doctor and patient, of course, but also friends,” Tugman says. “They really care about you. There was no question I would be coming back to Boston for the treatments, because everybody comes here from all over the world.”

“There was no question I would be coming back to Boston for the treatments.”
– Barbra Tugman, triple-negative breast cancer survivor

What followed her initial biopsy was a debilitating four years of genetic testing, invasive surgeries, follow-up treatments, and surgical reconstructions. Left in the wake of a near half decade of pain, Tugman found companionship in the many social experiences DFCI offers for its current patients and post-treatment alumni.

Those key experiences were Tugman’s first exposures to art therapy. It’d probably be easier to summarize what she didn’t partake in, but her activities ranged from massages and acupuncture to group art sessions where she could embrace crafts or slow down with yoga and Tai Chi.

“I was no longer in treatment, but I was still able to do all of this,” Tugman says. “Then I met Meg [Carleton] through Zoom, and we really became friends.”

Since May 2024, Carleton has been helping Tugman tackle her post-treatment world, one session at a time. Through doodling and meditation classes, Tugman finds accomplishment and empowerment. In group experiences like sound baths, she experiences a sonic healing experience.

“It’s all just so relaxing and calming,” Tugman says. “A lot of places don’t have things like that for cancer patients. They go for treatment and then they go home, but Dana [DFCI] has so many of these art programs where you meet great people.”

But beyond the Zoom calls and in-person sessions where Carleton is continuously finding new artistic ways to treat her patients, she also sees room for improvement in the medium. While it’s been successful in her office, there’s always ample opportunity to increase awareness around the practice.

“I think it’s a bit challenging for the field,” Carleton says. “We don’t have as robust an evidence base as other practices. Funding doesn’t always appear to be top priority for institutions, and it can be a catch-22 because they want to see an evidence base and to support the practice.”

While there may appear to be little motion across New England’s powerful network of health and science giants, there are innovators that have seen the good art therapy can do.

Doses of culture

Headquartered in Atlanta is an organization called Art Pharmacy, a social prescribing organization with a massive presence in Massachusetts. It was founded by Chris Appleton in 2022 after he identified a potential arts-based solution to the dual mental health and loneliness crises. In long-term recovery, he’s witnessed the healing power of the arts in his own life and in others’.

“The arts have played a really important role in my own mental health journey,” Appleton says. “There’s more demand than available providers, and the field can’t hire its way out of it.” He also cited the difficulties many people have in paying increasingly high costs per session.

“The arts have played a really important role in my own mental health journey.”
– Chris Appleton, founder of Art Pharmacy

That’s not to mention winding waitlists and a general difficulty in accessing services needed by a large chunk of the population. It wasn’t just a series of consultations with providers and talks with people in the arts and health research fields that pushed Appleton toward founding Art Pharmacy. One report from the Crisis Text Line found that the first and second most common needs among young people seeking help are opportunities for social connection and engagement in music, writing, and visual and performing arts.

“There’s a growing body of evidence that both participatory and receptive engagements improve people’s health and well-being,” Appleton says.

Now, his organization is approaching 500 community partners that help it offer its services. When a patient is referred to Art Pharmacy, they’re issued a prescription for 12 “doses” of arts and culture. “You get a unique member profile based on clinical and social needs, access barriers, health goals, and cultural identity.”

These doses can range from guided tours at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, to Diwali celebrations at the Worcester Art Museum and Salsa classes at the Hopkinton Center for the Arts. For a more social experience, painting and dance classes or visits to the zoo are available. And participants are able to bring companions, too.

“If we’re trying to do things like boost connection and belonging, we should enable people to do so with loved ones,” Appleton says.

Satisfied referrals can always re-up their doses, and so far Art Pharmacy has seen promising results: 90 percent of referrals end up engaging in the program, and 56 percent of its members have reported improved well-being. It also has a 72 percent attendance rate, and 61 percent of its participants report improved loneliness.

“There’s also a lot of individual choice and agency in our process,” Appleton says. “It’s important that our model is giving lots of options for the members to get that kind of care to the right person at the right place and time.”

Looking to the future

Healing can come in many ways. Boston, with its vast network of hospitals in Longwood Medical Center and miles of research labs in neighboring Cambridge, has foundations built on the hope that no matter how sick one might be, there will always be treatment options out there.

As larger organizations and board-certified specialists continue to expand their practices with a collective vision that a new form of treatment is not only here but effective, art therapy has a sky-high potential.

“The benefits of engaging in creativity with a supportive person can be healing no matter the population,” Carleton says. “I hope that it can continue to make its way into all treatment areas and continue to flourish.”