Creativity & Chronic Illness

I spent a few days this week in Chicago, where I spoke Wednesday at the Sixth Annual Chronic Illness Initiative Symposium at DePaul University. I have been fortunate to have a long and fruitful relationship with DePaul and it’s always good to return and see valued colleagues. It’s also heartening to meet the DePaul students who are going to great lengths to continue their education in the face of complex circumstances.

May 12, the day of the Symposium, was also International CFS/CFIDS/ME Awareness Day, a day to build awareness of chronic fatigue syndrome and work to further research and end the suffering that it causes.

CFS is the first illness in which I and my DePaul colleagues, led by Dr. Leonard Jason, validated the Fennell Four-Phase Model. The papers that we published continue to influence the understanding of how people come to integrate chronic illness into their lives. I remain deeply proud of the work that we have done together and to see the DePaul team continue publishing papers to further this work.

This year’s DePaul Symposium was about Chronic Illness & The Arts. As a lifelong musician, this is a topic that is very important to me. There is tremendous power in the creative process that helps people respond better to changing and uncertain circumstances.

With a chronic illness, you often don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next — it’s the roller-coaster that can be the hardest thing for people to cope with and understand. As the old saying goes, the only constant is change, and this is particularly true for people with chronic conditions.

I have defined five capacities that help people establish acceptance and meaning in their changed circumstances. They are:

1. Tolerate ambiguity
2. Become curious
3. Take risks
4. Improvise
5. Innovate

Using your powers of creativity in any medium, from the arts to business to daily living, is a powerful antidote to the feeling of helplessness that so many people feel when they are sick for long, indeterminate periods of time.

If you’d like more information about this topic, check out the slides from my two presentations here.

And please feel free to leave a comment on my blog or send me an e-mail at blog.28@albanyhealthmanagement.com.

2 Comments

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  By Annabelle, May 16, 2010 @ 8:08 pm

  So glad I stumbled upon this article. I have severe CFS and when I feel ‘good’ I crochet or make baskets. But sometimes my hands won’t even pick up the needle — some days are the total opposite — I can crochet up a storm.

  Thank you for this informative article and educational presentations.

  Annabelle

Other Links to this Post

1. Chronic Illness Workbook Blog » Creativity, Resolution, Art, Illness & Community — May 26, 2010 @ 7:40 am

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