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This paper concerns young adults who came to Sweden from Afghanistan as unaccompanied refugee minors (UMs) and their engagement with poetry and other creative activities. The aim was to explore how UMs use poetic writing and other creative activities to handle resettlement challenges. Seven young men and six young women, aged 18–24, participated in semi-structured interviews. The material was analyzed using the three components of poetry therapy, developed by Mazza. Three themes were identified: (1) Encouragement; (2) Creative expressions as a "safe place"; and (3) A sense of recognition. Through creative expressions, our participants could understand and handle the emotional difficulties and the insecurity associated with resettlement. Poetic writing was a way to convey personal experiences of injustices, a source of self-understanding, and a way to establish new social networks. We discuss and present suggestions on how poetry and other creative activities can be integrated in interventions toward UMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death of a loved one can create a tear in the fabric of meaning. Grieving involves remaking meaning. In therapy, events can be emplotted into stories, which can return some sense of coherence to the bereaved. In this paper, I present a way of narrating loss through a narrative therapy approach of retelling. This involved writing found poems, known as rescued speech poems, from the conversations of people who had lost a loved partner. The found poetry sought to bring an order to grieving and to polish the beauty of key moments following loss. For one participant, the found poetry amplified a narrative of the biography of the loved one. For another, the poems added beauty to a memory of her deceased partner. Thus, rescued speech poems—judiciously selected from speech, and sensitively arranged on the page—can provide another way to facilitate vibrant meaning-making of life after loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trauma needs containment and recognition in order to be handled, and this project enabled the soldier to do both through the use of writing and poetry. This paper is based on the qualitative findings of an 18-month long poetry therapy group conducted in a veteran's center, and follows the progress of the veterans as they learned to use writing and poetry to focus on the present and reconnect to a broad spectrum of emotions they had been trained to suppress. The paper describes the theory behind the exercises and their impact on the veterans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to demonstrate the power and meaning of human lyricism by the only means that can really do so - lyricism itself. Using a fresh reading of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets (Eliot, 1944), the author demonstrates the lyrical attitude Eliot himself offers us as a way to observe the world. This lyrical attitude, which the author believes is a vital component of the analytic presence, will be presented here as a unique kind of integration between the predictable and explicable - and that which is inexplicable and sometimes even unknowable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore the use of poetry in therapy, particularly with trauma survivors, and clients in recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Practice examples from sessions with individuals and groups illustrate some of the methods and benefits of writing poetry. Mazza's (2003) model is introduced, together with a discussion of the theoretical base and research supporting poetry writing as a therapeutic collaboration. In addition, the author demonstrates how therapists can use poetry writing themselves as a way to make sense of their work, and relieve the stress of absorbing the hurt and pain of their clients. Samples of poetry from her work and that of other therapists are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]