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Background: Art therapists working within medical settings often work with people undergoing invasive treatments and facing death. This proximity can place art therapists in precarious positions within organizations, and put patients at risk of depersonalized care.

Objectives: Using Kristeva’s (1982) interpretation of the abject and abjection as being the threat to identity that is rooted in the separation from the maternal body, as well as later theories of social abjection, I examine my work as an art therapist alongside previous experiences as a nurse to explore the abject and abjection in an NHS hospital. I suggest that art therapists, nurses and patients can be subject to organizational defenses where ‘messy’ caregiving roles are considered maternal, and the need for care is contrary to neoliberal ideology. Artmaking can be a powerful disruptive force that can expose these unconscious defenses as well as give voice to abject experiences of cancer treatment.

Method: I use a case study of my work with an autistic man with learning disabilities diagnosed with cancer who used artmaking to express abject thoughts and feelings in response to his illness and hospitalisation.

Results: Using this lens, I was able to explore ambivalent responses to my experiences as both nurse and art therapist as well as considering my patient’s experience of cancer breaching his physical and emotional boundaries.

Conclusion: Using these theories can enable art therapists to redefine organizational defenses, as well as harnessing the power of the abject within artmaking to reveal what is hidden - thus resisting abjection.