poetry therapy – Therapeutic Writing links

This article reports on the early stages of a multi-year project using writing to facilitate healing among university-aged survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Working with genocide survivors carries with it expected and unexpected personal and professional complexities. Drawing on early versions of her own published and unpublished poems, the author demonstrates by way of example the role that writing poetry and the use of poetic inquiry played in addressing those complexities. The article includes an overview of the project that took place in Rwanda and describes the challenges inherent in working with survivors, then lays out the role that poetry and poetic inquiry can play as a means of engaging with this sort of difficult research. Through the inclusion of the poems themselves, the author explores the ways poetry affords opportunities for listening, understanding, processing, and responding to others. The article concludes with an explication of the broader implications of this work.

Rescuing speech: Teaching a writing aesthetic for counseling practice

This author locates and describes the narrative therapy practice of writing poetic documents, and outlines a process for teaching counselor education students to craft poetic documents. Rescued speech poems, as poetic documents, are crafted by a therapist using only “rescued speech,” that is only words that clients have spoken in therapy. Significant words are noted during therapy—rescued, on narrative therapy terms—and later arranged in poetic form by the counselor. The author describes the steps of a teaching process intended to support student counselors to develop linguistic attunement and a writing aesthetic. Illustrative examples of poetic documents written with rescued speech are offered. In these ways, the article contributes from a narrative therapy perspective to the wider field of poetry therapy.

From therapy to poetry and back again: One writer’s journey

This reflective piece suggests three phases from therapeutic writing to full-fledged poetry to an audience’s reading and discussion, illustrated with specific examples and commentary. The author, a social scientist, an adult educator and a published poet, begins with the role of writing in her own processing of the painful experience of a family member’s severe mental illness and suicide, showing us her earliest therapeutic writing. She then illuminates a second phase, in which she gives us an inside look at the rewriting process that led to two poems suitable for public display. She considers how the resulting poems might be used for both therapeutic and educational purposes, offering discussion prompts and questions related to the poems.

Messengers in the shadow: a case study in creative writing and dreams

A dream may offer a unique pathway to a person’s inner world. This article begins by examining the combination of dreams, creative writing, and poetry therapy. The case study gives an idea of a creative writing process combined with the thought of Jungian self-analysis and poetry therapy experienced in Finland in 2011. With the perspective of poetry therapy, this study has its focus in dreams, depicted by words and by metaphors in the images of dreams. The research outlines the possibilities to study one’s inner world and gain insight, by having a dream diary. Dreams are commonly used in the contexts of bibliotherapy, and creative writing, but the topic of this three-dimensional combination has been studied relatively little considering what a popular everyday phenomenon a dream is. This qualitative study provides an example of a fascinating area of research in the field of fine arts activities and therapies. Writing dreams creatively in the context of poetry therapy, can be described as a possibility for self-knowledge.

Writing in solidarity: the lived experience of African American adolescent girls writing poetry

This article offers an expansion of the poetry writing and research featured in “Culturally Responsive Poetry” published in the Journal of Poetry Therapy in 2011. In this article, a follow up to the coeducational poetry pilot is provided through the experiences of African American adolescent girl poets. “Writing in Solidarity: The Lived Experience of African American Adolescent Girls Writing Poetry” is the outcome of an in-depth phenomenological research study exploring the lived experience of eight African American female high school students participating in an after school poetry group. The process of writing in solidarity is one of call and response that evokes a sense of understanding and concern for one’s self, poetry group members and community. Through this writing process, a sense of sisterhood is forged for the adolescent girls and the power of individual and collective naming (to call forth one’s own identity or identities) uncovered.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08893675.2018.1396725

Conversation about poetry/writing therapy: Two European perspectives

This conversation about poetry/writing therapy germinated from many discussions between two authors with long experience in the field. Their conversation has an essentially European quality, deepened by cultural differences. They talk about fundamental principles and values used in their practice and professional writing; their own personal writing experience that brought them to this work; characteristics and history of European approaches; its foundations in education, psychology, and philosophy; the difference and similarities between published literary writing and therapeutic writing; and the role of metaphor, narrative, and descriptive observation writing. An eclectic range of references, vital to the field, including selected research trial evidence from the United States and Europe, are drawn upon and critically discussed.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08893675.2011.593395

Writing and the development of the self- heuristic inquiry: A unique way of exploring the power of the written word

This article presents a heuristic research project designed to explore the role of personal writing in the development of the self. True to the heuristic process as outlined by Moustakas, the author analyzed over 30 years of personal poetry and journal writing through her mother’s mental illness and brother’s traumatic brain injury and epilepsy. Phase two of the project included nine participants (co-researchers) who were lifetime writers. Results indicated themes related to the (i) interpersonal and personal nature of writing, (ii) the spiritually transcendent nature of writing, (iii) the fact that writing facilitates perspective taking, (iv) the importance of challenge in personal growth, (v) the dynamic nature of writing, and (vi) the power of writing to influence personal identity. The paper presents the process, stories of the author and three participants, synthesized results, the power of the heuristic process, and potential application to the creative arts.

Poetry writing as a healing method in coping with a special needs child: A narrative perspective

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08893675.2011.573290

The focus of this article is on the role poetry writing plays in helping those bereaved or depressed to cope with their emotions. Through a therapeutic process of applying her thoughts to writing poetry, the author, mother of a special needs child, expresses herself and the trauma of her experience. The writer utilizes free verse to allow thoughts to freely form on the page instead of forcing them into a tightly constructed form that might hinder the therapeutic writing process.

The healing power of writing: applying the expressive/creative component of poetry therapy

The healing aspects of writing are explored in this article. This includes an overview of the evidence for the use of writing in therapeutic capacities, as well as a discussion of the limitations. A case study involving the use of journaling with a client suffering from Lupus is presented. Brief illustrations of the use of writing in couple, family and group modalities are also presented.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08893670412331311352

Category: poetry therapy

Song writing with clients who have dementia: A case study

Writing poetry in Rwanda: a means for better listening, understanding, processing, and responding