More than you think: art therapy in hospices
Article
InSight – Autumn 2025
Hospices across the UK provide a breadth of care and support. What can art therapy offer the thousands of people using hospices every year?
Hospices are more than you think
In the UK alone, over 300,000 people received hospice and palliative care in 2023–24. While we might associate hospices with managing physical pain at the end of life, many hospices offer a huge breadth of support to people across the UK.
As the theme for this year’s Hospice Care Week highlights – hospices are more than you think – hospices do much more than administer pain medication on a ward.
Hospices also often provide support that makes life better for the person and their family outside the hospice building.
They can provide practical, emotional and spiritual support to people going through a diagnosis, living with a life-limiting illness or experiencing grief.
Where does art therapy fit in – and how can it help?
Art therapy is an established form of psychotherapy. It’s delivered by trained art therapists (also known as art psychotherapists), who in the UK must be registered with the HCPC.
During art therapy, you are supported by an art therapist to use art to express thoughts and feelings through artmaking.
When words are not enough
The end of life, or being alongside a loved one as they approach death or live with a life-limiting illness, are likely to be some of the most difficult times in our lives.
Talking about death, illness, loss and grief can also be incredibly difficult for many of us.
Art therapy can help people to express experiences and feelings that may be difficult to put into words. Sometimes, expressing ourselves through artmaking can help us start to communicate complicated feelings and experiences.
For Wendy Brookfield, who had art therapy at Severn Hospice after receiving an incurable diagnosis of cancer, art therapy was more approachable than traditional talking therapies.
It’s often easier to talk to someone when you’ve got something else to concentrate on that’s not just about someone looking at you for the answer.
While at first you might feel daunted by the idea of artmaking, art therapy is not about being good at art.
“You don’t need to be Picasso,” Wendy says. “It’s not about being a fine artist; it’s about finding a space that is good for you.”
Examples of artworks by art therapy service users
Easing distress and improving wellbeing
Research suggests many people can find art therapy helpful when
approaching the end of life. People have reported decreased distress or increased wellbeing after an art therapy session.
“Pain often has a physical cause, particularly in advanced disease, but there are many components to that pain and suffering,” explains palliative care doctor Dr Ros Taylor MBE from Harlington Hospice.
“Often on a busy hospital ward, we only look at the physical, whereas what is actually causing a lot of suffering is facing loss, leaving people behind, losing identity and social losses. I think art psychotherapy is a tool to get to the heart of that total pain or suffering.”
Children and young people
Studies suggest that art therapy can help children and young people find a different way to express themselves. It can sometimes help them make sense of their inner worlds, whether they are in end-of-life care or experiencing loss or bereavement.
In one study, a child whose sibling was in end-of-life care had her own art therapy. By exploring and asking questions in a safe space, she was able to understand that she was not to blame for her brother’s illness.
Children and young people grieve just as deeply as adults. However, according to Child Bereavement UK, they can show it in different ways, and it can be difficult to know how to support them, especially when you are grieving too. For one parent, art therapy helped her daughter talk about her grandmother after her death.
‘My daughter is now more freely speaking about her Nan at home. Even on Mother’s Day we spoke about her not being here. Earlier she was worried about upsetting me, but now having this space where we spoke and made artwork about her has helped her’
Service user
When art therapists create on behalf of patients
For some people, making art while approaching the end of life might be physically difficult. Sometimes art therapists can make artworks on their behalf.
One art therapist made a portrait according to each patient’s wishes, over 12 weeks and exhibited them in a gallery. The patients were able to control how they were seen and express their identities through the portraits.
A tangible reminder
Artworks by a loved one who has died can be a physical reminder of them. For some people seeing it or touching it can bring comfort. It can also be a reminder of something they enjoyed.
In one example, an art therapist made a plaster cast of a mother’s and her son’s clasped hands.
Art therapy cannot change a diagnosis, but it can change the experience of living with it and offer comfort to those grieving.
Available support
If you or someone you love is living with a life-limiting illness or approaching the end of their life, you can contact your local hospice to see what support is available to you.
To find out if there is art therapy available to you, you can contact your GP, social prescriber or local charities.
You can also find art therapists working privately near you, through our Find an art therapist search.