Creativity and Healing With Art and Music Therapy

During Child Life and Creative Arts month, we’re spotlighting the expansion of our Creative Arts Therapy program and the way that music therapy and art therapy enhance the well-being of patients and families

Since 2017, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford’s music and art therapists have been helping children express their feelings about being in the hospital and encouraging them along their health care journey. Having seen the powerful impact that these therapies were having on patients—reduced stress, increased coping skills, more engagement with their treatment plans—the program expanded and has grown to include five full-time music therapists and two art therapists, as well as two “relief” art therapists.

Creative Arts Therapies Week (March 17–23) is celebrated every third week of March during Child Life and Creative Arts month. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the important role these Creative Arts therapists play in combining the benefits of creative expression and psychological support. And this year at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, there’s a lot to celebrate.

Customizing therapies to meet specific needs

“The language of children is play, music, and art—words are more language of adults,” says one of the art therapists. “When you come to the hospital, it’s really stressful, and you have no control. When you create art and music, it creates a sense of safety. We leverage that and use art and music as tools to help children recover and heal during a hospitalization.”

Creative Arts therapists plan tailored interventions based on each patient’s needs and developmental stages. For instance, art therapists may integrate mindful breathing techniques for patients who find this useful during the art-making process to enhance calmness and relaxation. One example of an intervention is allowing patients to choose their preferred colors for visualizing their breathing, helping them to connect mindfulness with their creative journey. Or if a patient struggles to verbalize their frustrations, art therapists can guide them in finding an expressive medium. This could be creating a collage, painting, journaling, or drawing to visually capture their emotions and process them.

Similarly, music therapists tailor interventions to suit a child’s individual needs, abilities, and interests since patients’ needs change so often. They may play music to assess a child for their response to it. Or they may engage a child in musical play or songwriting as ways to help them develop positive coping skills. “Music can be a great motivator,” says one of the music therapists. “When someone has no control, doing things that are generally preferred can help them participate in treatment. And we find through research that it can reduce their length of stay and the risk of long-term medical trauma.”

Both music and art therapists are closely integrated with a child’s medical team. When coming up with a music therapy intervention, for example, they may work with neurology to find ways to help children with traumatic brain injuries, encephalitis, or disorders of consciousness to promote recovery after an injury. Chang Chun (Alice) Chiang, manager, Creative Arts Programming, points out that music therapy plays a significant role in pain management and that even passive listening can influence a patient’s heartbeat, breathing, and overall relaxation. “We have lots of opportunities to expand into research by working with doctors in pain management or in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and seeing how music can help,” she says.

Expanding fun, creativity, and bonding through group programs

During the first few years of the Creative Arts program, therapists worked one-on-one with kids on individualized art and music therapy sessions. Then, to expand their reach, they started to bring together patients and their families for group interventions co-facilitated by art and music therapists. But the pandemic put those group sessions on hold for several years. Starting last November, the group programs resumed. They’re now held at least twice a month and have expanded to include outpatients as well as patients’ siblings and caregivers, and the team is looking forward to increasing the frequency of the sessions in the future.

Group programs are based on the needs and abilities of the families who attend. For example, if the program is for cardiac patients who are adjusting to long hospitalizations, art therapists may focus on creating a transition object to accompany the patients through the process. If participants share movement goals, the intervention may take on more of a physical aspect.

Running group programs provides therapists with valuable touchpoints. While creative arts therapists focus on individual support for patients, offering group sessions allows caregivers to strengthen bonds with the patients’ family members, elevating their ability to provide holistic care. “Meeting a patient’s grandfather or brother deepens our ability to carry over an understanding of that patient into our care with them,” says one of the art therapists. These connections enrich the therapeutic relationship, ensuring that the care is comprehensive and personalized.

Being in the hospital can be extremely isolating for patients and their caregivers. It can separate patients from their siblings. Group programs encourage families to enjoy a meaningful experience together, strengthening bonds. And social interactions with other families in similar circumstances open the door for peer support while providing a sense of community that families wouldn’t get in a room by themselves.

The healing power of creative arts

Creative Arts therapists work a lot with children on the hematology/oncology unit. Sometimes, they get to know them from the beginning when a diagnosis is uncertain, all through chemotherapy, right up until the time when treatment ends. When working with children with cancer, they take into consideration their culture and religion—and hair loss has huge symbolic significance in certain cultures. With this in mind, an intervention they’ve developed involves creating a stop-motion animated video in which the patient creates a character who loses their hair; this can help a child externalize their fears through storytelling.

For one young oncology patient, Gloria, participating in art and music therapy has been a bright spot. She started coming to the hospital in March 2024 and began seeing art and music therapists right away. “She enjoys them a lot,” says her mother, Julia. “Not just the music and art, but also the conversations with the therapists. Sometimes when she’s sad, she will start an art or music therapy session, and her mood improves.”

Gloria says that she enjoys writing songs, playing piano, and simply talking with her music therapist, Emily. And with her art therapist, Queenie, she likes to paint, make Play-Doh shapes and animals, and talk about her feelings.

Seeing Gloria—who had always been active and cheerful—being ill and hospitalized “has been complicated and painful,” says Julia. “The situation has been hard.” Still, Julia is grateful for the support. “Sometimes, she doesn’t want to be left alone, but there are times when I need to do things or run errands and don’t want to leave her by herself. The fact that the therapists are willing to come in and spend time with Gloria means a lot. I have been able to regain some time for myself and know that Gloria was not alone.”

Queenie, who has worked with Gloria, channels a phrase that struck a chord with her when she’s working with sick children. She heard it while experiencing the healing power of painting herself. “Medicine isn’t the only way to heal,” she says. “Art is medicine for the soul.” This expansion of what it takes to treat the whole person—body, mind, spirit—also inspires other Creative Arts therapists to continue expanding the program’s reach. “In the past 10 years, I’ve seen a positive shift toward treating the whole person,” says one of the music therapists. “I’m so excited to send the message that here at Stanford, we are treating the whole person, and that we are all more than a diagnosis. I’m excited to grow our program and show this to more people.”

Learn more about our Creative Arts Therapy program >