Gillie Bolton

Therapeutic Writing
A qualitative study of its value to people with malignant disease cared for in teenage cancer and palliative health care settings.

Finding
Cancer and palliative patients found therapeutic creative writing to have helped them

• 
  explore and express deeply personal thoughts feelings and experiences
• 
  reflect upon relationships, events and the natural world
• 
  communicate painful or personally vital elements with significant others
• 
  gain a sense of pride and achievement in creation.

Funded by Arts Council England (grantholder Gillie Bolton)

Based in
Medicine and the Arts Unit, English Department, King's College London University

Research undertaken in

• University College Hospital London Myerstein Institute of Oncology
• Teenage Cancer Trust Unit, Camden Palliative Care Unit

Reported in

• Journal of Medical Ethics: Medical Humanities, vol 34 number 1, June 2008
• A further paper under consideration by Journal of Health Psychology, special issue Health Psychology and Writing

For full report email Gillie