The Evolution of Healing Through Creativity Workshops

Early in my seven weeks of radiation therapy, my wife, Jo Ann encouraged me to write about what I was going through. When I sat down to do this, poetry was what came out. Much of what came out was about gratitude, positive focus and desired outcomes. When I shared what I had written, I found audiences to be very appreciative. Survivors and support people told me they felt the emotion in my words, and that my poems helped them to process what they were experiencing. Friends felt I should try to reach out and share what I had created with more people. Since then I have published some of the poems I wrote in a chapbook called Lemonade Notes To Cancer. I also found a number of periodicals and online cancer support sites willing to publish my work.

Over time I saw that the coping tools I accessed while defining and focusing on my desired outcomes could be valuable and relevant to most people facing major changes and challenges in their lives. I developed a Healing Through Creativity Workshop to share my poems and message. I soon recognized that the less these workshops became about me and my poems and the more they became about getting participants to use what I had learned in my healing for their own gain, the more everyone benefited in the process. My poems became prompts from which participants could think about and write from while defining what healing and creativity meant to them. The next step was to get participants talking with each other in breakout sessions. Feedback from these group sessions became the basis of a healing vocabulary list. At this time I began inviting participants to create something healing based on their collective definitions and to share what they created with their fellow participants

Recent Activism and Events

Recent Activism and Events: In January of 2009 I participated in the Florida Brain Tumor Association’s Conference in Tampa. In March I conducted two Healing through Creativity workshops at the Long Beach Voices & Visions Spoken Word Festival. In April I participated in the UCLA Brain Tumor Conference. In June I facilitated Healing through Creativity Workshops with the 6th grade class of Mary Bragg Elementary School in the ABC School District and with attendees at the Cedars Sinai Outsmarting Brain Tumors conference. In August of 2009 I participated in my second First Descents Kayaking Camp. The narrative I wrote about it is featured in Kayaking Session online.

Participating in these events has been a wonderful way to share what I have learned as a survivor. Through activism and the publication of my poetry I have touched thousands of people. It has been very fulfilling to help others process what they are struggling with and impart what I know about focusing on and gaining positive outcomes. I would love to come share my motivational workshop with your group.

For pricing please visit the Healing Through Creativity page on my website.

Richard Harvey's Bio

I am a 4½ year Brain Cancer Survivor. My medical treatments have included a full course of radiation, two years of chemotherapy and 4½ years of acupuncture and herbs. Through this process I have focused on positive outcomes and processed my experiences with creative expression. My results have included extraordinary success in overcoming health problems and the creation of a poem journal. A portion of that work is represented in my Chapbook, Lemonade Notes to Cancer.

What Is A Healing Through Creativity Workshop?

After a brief description of my experiences with cancer, I read two introductory poems. I explain that we will complete three breakout discussions in small groups, and that each discussion will offer specific prompts. I explain that the goal of this process is to generate a healing vocabulary list. We use this healing vocabulary list in a creative session at the end of the workshop. In the creative session, participants are encouraged to individually create something that conveys their most valued learning from the workshop.
Before each breakout, I read one or two poems to set an emotional and experiential tone for the discussion. Breakouts consist of small group discussions followed by larger group sessions. During the sessions, participants share the outcomes from the smaller groups while I distill this feedback by writing words on a whiteboard with Healing Vocabulary printed at the top. At the end of the breakout discussions, I read a final pair of prompt poems and hand out crayons and paper.I also distribute a Healing Vocabulary list I have collected in previous workshops. I suggest that individual creative projects can include drawing a picture, illustrating a word, illustrating a poem or writing a journal entry. After this Creative SessionI ask the participants to share what they created with the whole group. As people reveal what they have done, everyone in the group is welcome to discuss how these individuals’ projects make them feel.