Can Poetry Heal?

I know a few poets who I think could use some therapy (including myself), but until recently I'd never considered the art as a serious therapeutic tool. Some therapists, it turns out, find poetry to be highly effective in helping patients to cope with and overcome mental illness. In an article for the Psychiatric Centers Information Network, registered poetry therapist Perie J. Longo instructs us that "the word therapy, after all, comes from the Greek word therapeia meaning to nurse or cure through dance, song, poem and drama." I had no idea.

There are a few basic, accepted methods of poetry therapy. In one group method, the therapist selects a poem that highlights a problem that the patient group is dealing with, and that might help open a dialogue on the subject. Reading Emily Dickinson, for example, might help patients realize that loneliness isn't unique. Reading Roethke's "The Waking" might serve to focus a discussion on taking life one step at a time. Of course, this has to be carefully managed: poems mean different things to different people, and a poem that uplifts one patient might depress another.

A second method of therapy calls on patients to write their own poems. Longo holds poetry workshops for patients which are structured a lot like workshops in academia. When a patient's poem comes up for discussion, a couple of people read it to let the rhythms and the music sink in, then the group silently considers it until someone offers up a question or opinion. Of course, in poetry therapy, poems aren't looked at for their value as art, but as a window into the psychology of the poet and, by extension, as a means of healing. According to Longo, there are two major facets to such healing: defining the self, and helping to make connections between the self and others.

If you've ever written a poem, you know that the act of writing a poem can certainly achieve that first facet. Every poem I've written has given me at least some sense of defining myself. For a patient with mental illness, this act can take on particular importance. Longo once asked a patient how it felt to hold a published copy of a poem he'd written. The man simply replied, "I feel like I am somebody, finally."

As for the connection to others, Longo quotes the poet Stephen Dobyns, from his book Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry, in which Dobyns wrote, "I believe that a poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms. " Longo described one workshop in which such a connection was hauntingly made:

Often I will take a phrase from a poem and repeat it for each group member to orally fill in their thoughts, before they write their own poem. One day I began with such a phrase, "I have the right." As we went around the circle seated in the living room, most touching lines were being spoken: I have the right to get a cup of milk in the middle of the night; I have the right to breathe; I have the right to play my guitar; I have the right to comb my hair, etc. Suddenly one young man who was suicidal said, "I have the right to get a gun to shoot myself." A woman, who had sat quite silently lost in herself each time she came to group, which was not often, spoke up. Turning to him she said softly but firmly, "And I have the right to take it from you." In that moment the silence was stunning.

Longo also speaks to a third potential benefit of writing poetry: that writing a poem can help to clear up one's emotions on a complex issue. Form plays a key role here since it necessitates that you manipulate your thoughts into a structure--I occasionally feel that in writing a poem I've forced chaotic ideas into a sort of stillness. Longo mentions one radical formal technique: drawing "a box in the middle of the page and limit[ing] words to that space. Emotion will not run amok in this way, but be protected in the frame natural to the order of poetry."

It makes sense that poetry could have significant healing effects, and I wonder if those effects might actaully draw some poets to the art. I know poets who insist, with seriousness, that if they didn't write regularly, they'd go mad. And there are famous examples--like Plath--of those who wrestled with their demons on the page. In some cases, one could argue, poetry may have made matters worse.

Experts are careful to stress that poetry is a tool, which, wrongfully employed, can hurt rather than heal a patient. But many feel that it has significant potential. In a Time Magazine article on poetry therapy, Yale Psychiatrist Albert Rothenberg offered that "poetry by itself does not cure," but noted the benefit of its unique focus on verbalization, which, he offered, is "the lifeblood of psychotherapy."

Comments

[fericano]

Thanks, Johh. Another good post. Perie Longo is doing great work in this area. It was good to see her acknowledged like this. She is a wonderful poet in her own right. Anyone interested in reading her work, I suggest: "With Nothing Behind But Sky: A Journey Through Grief," and "The Privacy of Wind."

[poetnessa]

As a certified poetry therapist myself, I tell those attending my sessions that we are not writing poetry for publication (although they may want to pursue that avenue) and that although lots of wonderful poems are written in poetry therapy settings, our primary goal is for personal expression as a healing avenue. Our goal is to write ourselves through the problems of life, through grief and loss, through transition and mistakes, through illness and addiction.

I'm very grateful to have attended workshops with Perie Longo at the NAPT annual conference. She is one of the Master Mentor Supervisors in our field, a psychotherapist, and a poet herself. The National Association for Poetry Therapy's 29th Annual Conference: "Embracing Poetic Expression: Creative Pathways for Self, Community, and the World will be held April 15-19, 2009, in Washington DC. if you would like to attend and learn for yourself more about this field! There will be details (program, registration, etc.) added to our website www.poetrytherapy.orgg) as they become available. Great article! I am always inspired by learning how people are helped in our world.

[hope4flowers]

poetry doesn't heal. but its funny to read the people who go ooh and aah at the thought.Po­etry is a waste of time.

[Norge]

There are those who would tell you that there is no such aspect of humans as mental illness but only behavior unexceptable for others or authority.

Of course poetry heals, in one form or another. It is it's only true reason for being. It is what graces the spirit, lifts the burdens of doubt, rights the wrongs of injustice, creates harmony out of kaos and sings
the praises of the immenseness of the cosmos and our human connection with it.

And it is what cleanses the human heart of bitterness. It is what replaces hopelessness with hope
and relieves the grief from the stricken mind.

It is humanities' love for life and sings life's praises from the primodal deep..

[Wendy101]

I enjoyed reading your post on poetry therapy . I've been writing poetry for some time now. Though I have had a few published it is not the reasoning behind my writings. A phrase I use often when blogging is ," My Usual Stay In Thought ". I find writing not only releases but balances the energy within.
It's like a form of meditation to me. The words flow not only from a conscious state but also subconsciously making me more aware of who I am on a more spiritual level.

Nice topic, thank you for sharing.

[athenasword]

Wonderful post! Like all other forms of art, creating poetry is a sacred act. An act of power. To produce art means that we must feel, observe, connect and communicate. And, it is indeed healing.

I am very intrigued by the group poetry. I am particulary moved by what happened between the two group members who said "I have the right to get a gun to shoot myself" ..."And I have the right to take it from you." The grace and healing power in that moment is incredible.

[Perie]

Hi John, A friend sent me a message I was on the Huffington Post today so I googled it and there was your article about poetry therapy and my work. Thank you for drawing attention to the field of Poetry Therapy. For anyone interested, there is the National Association for Poetry Therapy. Website is: www.poetrytherapy.org. There are people all over the country doing this important work of helping people to find their voice: vets, the homeless, Hospice clients, the elderly, students of all ages, etc. including the every day hard working individual wondering what next? Poet Gregory Orr, in an essay for NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, February 20, 2006,wrote: “Because poems are meanings, even the saddest poem I write is proof that I want to survive... the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive." A pleasure meeting you and thanks again.

[Poegles]

John, very much enjoyed this post. I've linked to it on my blog, www.poegles.com. 'Poegles' rely on search results to create poetry. A brain researcher named Gary Small at UCLA recently announced that in tests seniors who used the internet to search showed "extensive activity in decision-making and complex-reasoning portions of the brain," suggesting that searching the internet stimulates the mind. While it's a bit of a stretch, we've postulated that making poetry with search results must, then, be good for your noodle. Not exactly emotional therapy, but mental stimulation at least as strong as sudoku.

We posit that the act of collecting and rearranging random scraps of text from the internet into poetry that someting of the poet's self is communicated in the act. So even thought the text may come from others, the poem- or "poegle"- is indeed the poet's own.

Best regards, Justin

http://www.poegles.com/2008/11/01/can-poegling-make-you-smarter/

[nolabear]

There are many reasons that poetry heals. Humans understand metaphor at a deep level and a relationship between poet, reader (or hearer) and work becomes a ground for empathy, creative thinking and loosening of often constricted feeligs. Think of the last time you choked up when a song (poetry to music) seemed to say just what you felt and brought you closer to knowing that we all have such feelings. "Good" poetry is accessible to many, but as someone who's done poetry therapy with populations as different as teenaged prisoners, children of Alzheimer's victims and women with breast cancer, the very act of finding a rich and meaningful way to express a feeling and to see someone else deeply touched by your expression gives a whole new meaing to the idea of "good." It's not hard when you lose a parent to resonate with Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night;/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light," nor for a lonely teen to find relief in Emily Dickenson's "I'm nobody/Who are You?/Are you nobody too?" It helps. It just plain helps.

[jemiltd]

As a poet, I am a true believer of the healing power of poetry. I posted a piece on depression as a comment on the suicide of a known music industry executive and was surprised at the responses received, thanking me for the perspective the piece provided. I think that there are so many creative ways to convey a thought and while one person may not connect to therapy-speak, the same message in poetic/prose format may resonate. And isn't that the point?

PS: Ramblings Through the Attic of Thought is my book and on Amazon. Feedback welcomed.

[argyle]

Interesting. I guess it goes back to the debate about what poetry is. If poetry is the innovative impulsive linguistic expression, then yes, poetry is very emotionally honest and thus powerful. If poetry is more about the molding of that ubiquitous expression with rhythm, implied order, and profound subtlety, then I would argue that writing poetry is hard work, serious work. I think anybody that really wants to write good poetry already has some kind of major substance abuse problem or university tenure anyway. Seriously though, everybody writes bad poetry and it is very good for you. It's trying to write the other stuff that drives you crAZY.