The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 159–160
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The Arts in Psychotherapy
Book review
Journaling Cancer in Words and Images, Caught in the Clutch of
the Crab, H.C. Wadeson. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, IL (2011).
206 pp., 70 black & white illustrations, reproduced in color on
an accompanying CD-ROM. Paperback $36.95
Pioneer art therapist and writer Harriet Wadeson’s new book
Journaling Cancer in Words and Images, Caught in the Clutch of the
Crab is—to cut to the chase—a masterpiece. This story of Wade-
son’s cancer diagnosis at the age of 78, harrowing treatment and
what happens afterward, is not a self-help book, thankfully, nor
one of the many renderings of a spiritual journey which consider
cancer a “gift” to make the victim a better person who finally under-
stands the meaning of life. Instead, it is a no-holds-barred telling
of an agonizing and all-too-universal story. In addition, we are
lucky to have Wadeson’s reflections on the meanings of the jour-
ney by an experienced art therapist, writer and keen and aware
observer who considers her process and describes differences for
her of writing and making art. Nothing is hidden here and that
Wadeson has written so carefully and completely is a remarkable
gift.
After an “Introduction”, the book is divided into five sections:
“Creative Expression”, “In the Clutch of the Crab”—Wadeson’s daily
written journal, “Surviving” which chronicles the year after treat-
ment, “Cancer Land” an altered book of imagery, representing her
process of making the altered book, and “Writing and Making Art”
a reflective essay comparing these two forms of creative expres-
sion. The Appendix includes a short history of Altered Books and a
useful reference list of cancer memoirs and information. There is
a CD-ROM at the rear of the book, containing the book’s images in
color.
Wadeson published six art therapy books previously, most of
them about art psychotherapy concepts and clinical practice. Her
prose is satisfying; she is an experienced writer who loves words
and who writes with clarity and completeness; these characteris-
tics are welcome and evident in this book. And while this is in no
way a humorous book, there is a kind of underlying humor here
to ease the journey. What are we to make of the notions of “dead-
pan humor”, “graveyard humor”, and “black humor” which seem
particularly apropos?
Wadeson’s sharply observant eye includes as characters medi-
cal professionals and settings, resources for cancer people, family,
friends and her partner. In the telling, she discloses what worked for
her and what didn’t, what helped and what hurt providing useful
insights for us all.
The book powerfully and uniquely engages text and image. I do
not know of another book like it. I hate to use the old cliché “the
triumph of the human spirit” but in her paintings, imagery and in
her Altered Book for an Altered Life”, this is exactly the magic treasure
Wadeson gives us: In the midst of her dark winter, when she could
do little else, she continued her artwork which, for a time, provided
her with a surcease from suffering. (The pictures are in black and
0197-4556/$ – see front matter
doi:10.1016/j.aip.2012.01.003
white throughout the volume and in color in a CD-Rom at the rear
of the book—don’t miss them.) She writes:
I needed to do something, to be active to oppose my resig-
nation to the tortures imposed upon me. I needed to assert
my personhood as I passively underwent frightening, debilitat-
ing and humiliating procedures (Italics, mine) (Wadeson, 2011,
p. 7).
Wadeson took her paints with her to the hospital and kept them
close by during chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Typically,
her written journal is a description of what happened and her feel-
ings about it. Her artwork tends toward the metaphorical rather
than the literal and it is sometimes both. Retrospectively, Wadeson
notices the omission of much imagery of her “outside world” dur-
ing treatment including her many trips to a Botanical Garden which
provided her with a sustaining nurturance; she concludes that this
journey is mainly self-focused. Throughout, her artwork is strong,
honest and bold—clearly by a capable artist using her art to search
the depths of an inward and very personal experience.
Wadeson notices anew the raison d’etre for art therapy. She
says: Even if about the pain in your current reality, [it] lifts you
beyond that reality into a world of your own creation. There is a
strange paradox here. Although the focus is on what may be suf-
fering, perhaps even the reliving of an excruciating experience,
that focus is enveloped by another focus, which is the creative
experience itself.
. . .Creative expression can affirm your own special personhood,
what in you is strong and unique. You are not simply a cipher in
an unending march of patients into the operating room, the radi-
ology department, the chemotherapy suite. You are expressing
your own individual response to the tsunami that has wrecked
your life and the flood that is drowning so much of it (Wadeson,
2011, p. 9).
Feeling sick in the aftermath of chemotherapy, Wadeson drags
herself to an Altered Book workshop given by the Cancer Wellness
Center and finds a process that fits the imagistic telling of her cancer
life: “[A book] has shape and heft. I knew I wanted to sculpt it in
some way. . .A book seemed to me to be the perfect container for
images” (Wadeson, 2011, pp. 179–180).
A sequential story already written, which can still be radi-
cally changed, an altered book may be analogous to the sharp,
often unexpected turns a life may take—that Wadeson’s life took.
Enclosed between covers, pages follow one another until finally
arriving at an ending. A book is a safe container which can be read
for awhile, then closed and put aside—in a way, it disappears into
memory—until the reader/artist decides to open it again. A book has
a beginning and an end, but it remains a living object. The implicit
message of altered books is that a book is not a finished-forever
entity which has ended, but is a living thing open to change and
the nuances and upheavals of human life. As the artist transforms
160 Book review
the book, so life can be transformed, made different, more expres-
sive, more powerful and whole. This use of books as structured, safe
containers will be of particular interest to art therapists, expres-
sive therapists and psychotherapists of all kinds (Junge, 2008, pp.
229–242).
It has been decades since readers have revered books as physical
objects, taking care to never damage them in any way. Instead, con-
temporary Altered Book processes invite the participant to impose
change on a book, to bend it to the artist’s desires, to make it
more than a “mere” book—to create an art object. For her altered
book, Wadeson creates many images over time, but her most
compelling—present from the beginning—is the “black hole”—“the
black hole my life had fallen into” (Wadeson, 2011, p. 180).
This book should be read by everyone who dares to confront
the innate personal demons of life and death. And it should be read
by all who wish to encounter the human spirit at its best. Wade-
son’s honesty and personal suffering are moving, inspirational and
finally transformational for the reader. The book’s brisk and acces-
sible prose belies the depth and layered resonance with the best
that is human in her and in us. I couldn’t put the book down and
when I finished, I emerged changed.
References
Junge, M. B. (2008). The book about daddy dying. In Mourning, memory and life itself,
essays by an art therapist. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas., pp. 229–242.
Wadeson, H. C. (2011). Journaling cancer in words and images, caught in the clutch of
the crab. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Maxine Borowsky Junge, Ph.D, LCSW, ATR-BC,
HLM
Emerita, Loyola Marymount University, 6877 Crystal
St., Clinton, WA 98236, United States
E-mail address: MBJunge@Whidbey.net