Creating doorways: finding meaning and growth through art therapy in the face of life-threatening illness

OBJECTIVES

This article presents the findings of a pilot study situated in a tertiary care cancer centre and examines the impact of an art therapy group on the experiences of women living through breast cancer.

STUDY DESIGN

The study design used in this study is a qualitative cross-case comparative case.

METHODS

Ten women were interviewed about their experiences making art, many for the first time. Interviews were transcribed and analysed, along with the participants' artist statements.

RESULTS

Categories include the following: the significant benefits of art therapy on their sense of self-efficacy; the emotionally enhancing nature of making art for the first time; the power of their artwork to trigger insights about themselves (including subcategories of self-actualization, existential growth, and post-traumatic growth) or in communicating their experiences to loved ones; and how making art changed their worldview and life philosophies, creating doorways of possibilities.

CONCLUSION

This study suggests that art therapy provides a safe context to reflect on profound personal changes and to re-story losses following adversity through creative practices as a dimension of care.

Role of near-field enhancement in plasmonic laser nanoablation using gold nanorods on a silicon substrate: comment

In this comment, we argue that the conlusion made by Harrisson and Ben-Yakar [Opt. Express 18, 22556 (2010)], which states that nanoablation with plasmonic nanorods depends on the enhancement of the Poynting vector rather than the one of the square of the electric field, is incorrect and not necessarily needed to explain their experimental results.

Land district, ecophysiographic units and areas: The landscape mapping of the Ministère des Ressources naturelles du Québec

In 1985, the Ministère des Ressources naturelles established a Forest Ecological Survey Program for Southern Québec. One component of the program was the mapping of land districts, which provide a physiographically-based territorial reference system. The land districts have an average surface area of between 100 and 300 sq km. Since its inception, the department has further refined the methodologies and standardized the results. The current methodologies are based on inventory and analysis of the geographical distribution of permanent environmental components (e.g., relief, surficial deposits, geology, hydrography). The products include 1:50 000 maps of surficial deposits, 1:250 000 maps of the land districts and physiographic systems, and a computerized data bank.To date, 500 000 km square have been covered, and the estimated completion date for the work is 1999. To facilitate use of the products and to encourage the development of new applications, a guide for forest managers and other users has been recently published. The guide assists with forest management planning strategies based upon the physical environment, in particular the production and use of interpretation grids and maps. The products of the mapping process are, for many regions of Southern Québec, the only source of information on permanent environmental components.Currently, the Ministère des Ressources naturelles is planning to develop landscape maps of Southern Québec which identify ecophysiographic units (1:1 250 000) and ecophysiographic areas (1:2 500 000). These maps are based upon the integration of critical physiographic features and the synthesis of land regions.

HLA frequencies in less common arthropathies

There was no increased incidence of HLA-B27 in patients suffering from rubella arthropathy, when compared to both the Westminster controls and a group of patients with arthritis secondary to dysentery who nearly all possessed this allele.