title: Magic as a therapeutic intervention to promote coping in hospitalized pediatric patients.
abstract: Magic as a therapeutic intervention is used in an innovative, hospital-based program to address the psychosocial issues children and adolescents often experience as a result of illness and hospitalization. A child life specialist and a magician with an MBA collaborated, blending clinical expertise with business acumen and professional-level magic skills to create the program. The program has two distinct components: (1) magicians using interactive, close-up magic and humor as a technique to promote socialization, enhance self-esteem, and increase opportunities for choice and control, and (2) magicians providing the personal instruction and materials that enable chronically ill and long-term patients to learn and perform magic to promote a sense of empowerment and feelings of mastery. Positive responses from patients, families, and staff to the program at one hospital led to the creation of Open Heart Magic, a non-profit children's foundation that maintains and staffs bedside, interactive therapeutic magic programs in five hospitals in the Chicago metropolitan area.
authors.affiliation: Child Life Services, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Robyn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hart
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Walton
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002641:Chicago; D002648:Child; D002673:Child, Hospitalized / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005582:Foundations; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008273:Magic / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D024802:Nurse's Role; D018579:Patient Selection; D010371:Pediatric Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration; D010560:Personnel Selection; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012649:Self Concept; D012951:Socialization; D014925:Wit and Humor as Topic