Abstract

Take a journey in a hot air balloon to see the world differently. Open your heart, drop your fears, relax and get in touch with your feelings.

This colorfully illustrated interactive journal with a delightful story line has been used to help children of all ages express their emotions and feel better about themselves and the world through writing, drawing, and symbols. This fully updated and expanded edition is overflowing with new stories and activities to unleash creative expression and allow images to do the talking.

A Journey in The Moon Balloon® is an indispensable tool for parents, teachers, counsellors, art therapists, health care professionals and all those concerned with bringing emotional healing to children.

This is a beautiful book! A Journey in the Moon Balloon: When Images Speak Louder than Words really empowers the reader to playfully enter the creative realm with grieving children and young people facing life-threatening illnesses... At the heart of Drescher's stunning book is her unflagging respect for children and her belief in the power of love.
Rob Zucker, MA, LCSW, author of The Journey Through Grief and Loss: Helping Yourself and Your Child When Grief is Shared
This book represents the best practices for working with children's emotional issues. A must have for chaplains, professional caregivers, medical practitioners and art therapists, as well as parents. Well researched and easily approachable in its applications.
Rev. Suzanne Fageol, Spiritual Director and Somatic Trauma Educator
Pediatric nurses and other health care providers concerned about helping school-aged children cope with difficult situations, such as illness, pain, loss, grief, disappointment, or other challenge, will find this book valuable. It offers clinicians, as well as health professions students, a developmentally appropriate and evidence-grounded intervention to provide to children and to parents who yearn to help their children. It belongs on the bookshelf in every pediatric health care setting!
Marcia R. Gardner
Pediatric Nursing
A Journey In The Moon Balloon: When Images Speak Louder Than Words offers an uplifting way of making art with children, families, and caregivers, all the more effective in its grounded embrace of the full spectrum of emotions experienced by those facing health challenges and crises. Joan Drescher, a skilled illustrator and pioneer Artist in Residence at the Massachusetts General Hospital, brings considerable credibility to the emerging use of the arts in comprehensive healthcare. In addition to suggestions for initiating artistic expression, the book offers insightful psychological guidance on the creative process and how to help others become engaged in their unique ways. Art therapists and students who are increasingly interested in the process of interactive art making will find this book inspirational. For me personally, Joan Drescher and others like her will hopefully spur on the arts therapy disciplines to create together with artists whose work serves public health and find ways to form a more inclusive community of all who aspire to advance art healing in the world.
Shaun McNiff, University Professor, Lesley University, author of Art Heals, Integrating the Arts in Therapy, Art-Based Research and Imagination in Action: Secrets for Unleashing Creative Expression
Through the universal language of images, Joan Drescher offers us a tool to unlock and help children deal with the wide range of often difficult, but always honest feelings that children facing death - their own or that of a loved one - experience. This powerful book reflects Joan's deep commitment to and respect for children and the importance of honoring each child's unique voice and spirit.
Judy Rollins, PhD, RN
Joan Drescher has explored how art heals the body, mind and spirit for more than twenty years. Her unique and colourful murals answer the need to humanize the healthcare environment and are found in major hospitals throughout the USA and Canada. As a recent Artist in Residence at the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, Joan has brought light and reassurance to the bedside of hundreds of hospitalized children and their families. She is the Director of the non profit The Moon Balloon Project ®, Building Healing Bridges for Children Through the Arts in Medicine (www.TheMoonBalloonProject.org). She has authored and illustrated twenty-five children's book, including Wings of Light with Dr. Joan Borysenko. Joan is a fellow at the Lesley University Institute for Mind, Body and Spirituality in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a certified Spiritual Director from the Claritas Institute for Inter-spiritual Inquiry in Boulder, Colorado. She is a Gallery Artist at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, Massachusetts. Her prints and paintings can be seen at www.joandrescher.com.
When words are not enough to ease the pain and sorrow inherent in the human condition, this compendium of insights, techniques and images is an amazing resource. A Journey in the Moon Balloon: When Images Speak Louder than Words belongs on the bedside table of all adults - to be turned to often when called upon to console a child - or the child in all of us.
Sandra Bertman, PhD, FT, author of Facing Death: Images, Insights & Interventions
I have been using dreams and drawings by my patients for decades. Consciousness speaks to us through images. I commend Joan Drescher for her work and book, and hope that it will make a difference and have patients' drawings become a part of medical training and education.
Bernie Siegel, MD