Three-dimensional printing and medical art therapy in oncology

A cancer diagnosis can be a deeply disruptive experience that has lasting physical and psychosocial consequences. At all stages of treatment and survivorship, art therapy can be a beneficial holistic mental health service that can mitigate the long-term psychological risks for cancer patients. However, there are severe environmental limitations to accessibility of services in many oncology settings, including physical isolation, presence of medical machinery, small spaces, or time restrictions. In the overtly sterile environments of hospitals and clinics dedicated to cancer care, medical art therapists are challenged to creatively innovate tools and methods of their practice to ensure patient safety, equitable access to services, and provision of meaningful and effective intervention tools. Contemporary practice in art therapy has overall reflected a moderate shift toward digital media and technology-based intervention tools such as tablets, photography, or virtual reality. Unifying the benefits of three-dimensional (3D) printing observed in surgical-medicine literature with the reported best practices of medical art therapy in oncology, this research explores clinical use of digital media and proposes the utilization of 3D printing for art therapists working in hospital settings. The proposed resource guide included is based on transitional object theory and uses a dialectical approach to narrative therapy to provide cancer patients with opportunities to tell their stories, process feelings, reconceptualize life events, and find profound, meaningful resolutions.