Michael Samuels, M.D. has used art and guided imagery with cancer patients for over twenty five years in private practice and in consultation. He has watched as his patients have drawn, played music, and written themselves well. He is on the advisory boards of Commonweal, for their Cancer Retreats, and Tamalpa Institute, an organization that uses dance for healing. He also experienced the power of art and healing personally as he wrote a journal and a novel while his wife lived and then died with breast cancer. He found that his writing was the major healing intervention he did during that difficult period. It kept him positive and helped him love her in the most stressful time.
He is also the co-founder and director of Art As a Healing Force, a project started in 1990 devoted to making art and healing one. He lectures and does workshops nationwide for physicians, nurses, artists, and patients on how to use art in healing. He has organized many nationwide conferences on art and healing and visits and participates in projects in hospitals where art and music are used with patients. He networks people in the field together and is a recognized leader in art and healing. He is the author of fourteen books including the best selling Well Body Book, Well Baby Book, Well Pregnancy Book, and Seeing With the Mind's Eye. .
Mary Rockwood Lane, R.N., M.S.N. is a painter and a nurse. She experienced art and healing first hand as she painted herself out of a severe depression during a divorce. From what she learned in that experience she became the co-founder and co-director of the Arts in Medicine program at University of Florida, Gainesville and founded their artist in residence program.
She has led and developed that program for over five years and she now is doing research in art and healing for her P.H. D. in nursing at University of Florida, Gainesville. Her P.H.D theses is on the patient's lived experience of art and healing and the research for it is in progress. It will be the first advanced degree in art and healing in the medical field. She has written many articles on art and healing in nursing and medical journals and is a recognized leader in the field. She lectures and teaches workshops on art and healing across the worldwide and helps medical centers and artists set up art and healing programs.