Can Joan of Arc Serve as an Enduring Model of Empowerment for Women With a Cancer Diagnosis?

CONTEXT: Many research studies have shown that arts-based medicine is a viable and effective medical strategy to help people with cancer improve the quality of their lives. The use of arts-based strategies that employ a figure from history as a source of support to help improve the quality of life has not been documented.

OBJECTIVE: The current limited study allowed the author the ability to use the materials in her book, If Joan of Arc Had Cancer: Finding Courage, Faith, and Healing From History's Most Inspirational Woman Warrior, to provide support to women who were cancer survivors and to see if the use of Joan of Arc as a healing guide would be relevant. The primary intention was to find out how the book would be received by women with cancer and also to have the opportunity to determine what was helpful and what was not useful for them.

DESIGN: The study was a pilot study.

SETTING: The study took place at the Gilda's Club, a national support community for people with cancer and their families, in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, one of the satellite programs sponsored by the Wellness Community.

PARTICIPANTS: Participants were 10 female survivors of cancer who were members of the Gilda's Club.

INTERVENTION: Participants took part in a 6-wk workshop. The workshop included arts-based medicine and meditations, based on a book written by the current author.

OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants completed surveys both pre- and postintervention.

RESULTS: The program had 10 participants, but only 3 women finished the 6-wk program and completed the postintervention survey. After the workshop, the 3 participants indicated in a survey that they were feeling less anxiety and fear and noted that they felt that they had an improved quality of life and felt more empowered with respect to their psychological frames of mind. In addition, when asked on the survey about the effectiveness of their communications with their physicians (ie, their ability to express and discuss their psychosocial and physical needs combined), they also indicated that they felt that their communications had improved.

CONCLUSIONS: The current study, conducted with a small group of women who were cancer survivors, has shown that the use of arts-based medicine can be effective and, most particularly, that the use of Joan of Arc as a model for empowerment can be particularly effective.