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Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy

What do a teenage girl in oncology, a hematology patient who misses the sea, and an HIV carrier who feels trapped have in common?

Rambam is the only medical center in Israel that has introduced art therapy to regular hospitalization wards as well. A seminar that dealt with the subject was dedicated to the unique ability to relieve patients who are dealing with physical illnesses, pain and distress. So why aren't they actively trying it out in the entire healthcare system? 

Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy (Photo: Rambam)
Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy (Photo: Yael Mizrahi and Liat Ariel from Rambam, Dr. Ilana Lech from the Yahat organization)

Artist Zev Engelmeier speaks in praise of art therapy ► Watch

A seminar for arts therapists

At the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, on Thursday, February 22, a seminar of arts therapists was held, designed to share knowledge and developments in a field that is in distress in regards to directing budgets of the system to this important professional activity.

The choice of Rambam as the meeting place is not accidental - Rambam is the only hospital in Israel that embraces treatment through the arts, which is a psychotherapeutic tool, not only in mental health departments or with patients with a background of mental coping - at Rambam they use the tool effectively And I also created in "regular" hospitalization wards, at the general hospital. The seminar was done in partnership with YHT - the association for therapy through the arts in Israel.

Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy (Photo: Rambam)
Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy (Photo: Yael Mizrahi and Liat Ariel from Rambam, Dr. Ilana Lech from the Yahat organization)

Liat Ariel, director of the psychological service at Rambam explains: 

The therapy through the arts enables therapeutic work with an additional layer to the verbal. At Rambam, treatment is provided in the neurological unit, the oncology-hematology wing, the pain institute, the immunology clinic, and the pediatric hemato-oncology department.

Art therapy is done by art therapists from different fields: visual art including phototherapy, movement, bibliotherapy, which allow patients to be in contact with healthy and wholesome areas of creation in their experience, and to give emotional expression to the contents that occupy them. The treatment through the arts promotes adaptation and dealing with symptoms and physical and emotional difficulties and helps in the cultivation of mental powers.

At Rambam, we went through a process - we left the familiar practice of mental health, into new spaces of therapeutic work, where doctors' rooms and hospitalization spaces are the new work spaces.

The therapists told about their activity

The therapists themselves shared their activity with the participants on the seminar day, while presenting various cases in which art therapy was able to improve the mental state and also reduce the pain and suffering of patients with minor illnesses.

The symposium included an exhibition of works by patients (anonymously) who agreed to share the way they did through art in dealing with the physical illness and the accompanying emotional aspect. Particularly eye-catching were the works of a 14-year-old girl who was treated in the pediatric hemato-oncology department, and while receiving the "conventional" medical treatment, she also devoted herself to visual art therapy and allowed an impressive hidden artistic talent to break out, so much so that she told her therapist, Nibal Khoury-Gada , that she is now considering continuing in high school with an art major rather than regular theoretical studies. 

Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy (Photo: Rambam)
Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy (Photo: Yael Mizrahi and Liat Ariel from Rambam, Dr. Ilana Lech from the Yahat organization)

The person responsible for the field "in the field" is Yael Mizrahi, coordinator of the field of arts therapy in the psychological service at Rambam who says:

The arts therapists integrate into the various units where there is an array of the psychological service to which they belong, and are part of the multi-professional team in the department. The therapists work in both individual and group therapy. The treatment includes crisis interventions, accompanying the patient and his family throughout the hospitalization and processing loss processes following illness or injury and pain.

The artist Zev Engelmeier

A well-known and well-known figure who came to the conference to support the assimilation of art therapy activities in hospitals was the artist Zeev Engelmeier, a lecturer at Bezalel, who is also known for his activism and artistic activity in the form of "Shushka". Engelmeier told in his lecture about how the combination of practicing art helped his daughter Rotem, in dealing with health challenges.

Nibal explains:

The disease strengthened the girl's art. She was always interested in the field, but during treatments she went through an interesting process of bringing out her body perception in works with more emotional depth, and with reference to her coming of age as a girl. Art has a huge power to allow patients to bring out emotional contents into the treatment. The girl herself explains in a very mature philosophical way that "'art lowered my defenses and during the treatment I don't feel like I have to survive, just be.'
Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy (Photo: Rambam)
Rambam reduces pain and distress in hospitalization through art therapy (Photo: Yael Mizrahi and Liat Ariel from Rambam, Dr. Ilana Lech from the Yahat organization)

contact: At watsapBy email

Rambam Medical College for Human Health
Rambam Medical College for Human Health
Rambam Medical College for Human Health - The vision: to lead medicine in Israel and make a mark in Israel and the world in treatment, innovation, research, technology and the development of the professional staff, while placing the person, the patient and the employee, at the heart of the action. Inquiries and questions: [email protected]

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