Search

In difficult times, people turn to poetry, reading, and writing for solace and peace. In emotionally intense and traumatic times, people use poetry to process and understand the lived eyepieces. The havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the emotional and psychological well-being of individuals all across the world. Poetry has emerged as a savior in these difficult times. A phenomenon, "lockdown poems", came into existence as individuals all across the globe processed and shared their lived experiences of isolation, pain, and suffering through poems. In the present paper, students of a management program process and share their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent lockdowns, and their community work experience. Poetry as a therapeutic and hope-building tool is discussed in the paper along with the original poems written by the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illuminates a method of representation of research methodologies and philosophical positioning expressed through the use of poetics, allowing for a more playful space for critical reflection in qualitative research. Methodologies and ontological and epistemological positioning can take on many forms within the research process and can pose a conundrum for the novice researcher. During my exploration for a suitable methodology whilst I undertook a Professional Doctorate in Health and Wellbeing there emerged a selection of poems debating the merits, in addition to the limitations, of the potential options available; all dependent on the philosophical stance I chose to embrace. Within this process, I was encouraged to use this art-based method of poetic expression within the doctoral trajectory which continued throughout the journey to facilitate reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual Poetry and nursing have much to say about humanity during and after the global lockdown. Whereas nurses have worked on the front lines to treat infected patients both physically and mentally, poets have played a tremendous role in relieving students of negative energy, motivating them to pursue their dreams and hopes. Building on Thematic Analysis and the Reflective Learning Approach, this paper examines the relationship between virtual poetry and nursing education. One focus group from Agadir city had to study English at ISPITS institute for 14 h, using Google Meet and, at a later stage, they were entailed to evaluate their learning experiences with the Online English Class. The results unveiled that the Moroccan student nurses share a great concern for humanity and that virtual poetry could be used as an instructional medium in shaping their personality traits and reinvigorating their academic goals about the nursing practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an a/r/tographic (artist/researcher/teacher) study through autobiographical close readings of several poems as a means to understand death within what the author calls eternal poetic time. Moving beyond the author's childhood's static image of death, the paper suggests that the ephemeral nature of life is not something to fear, but makes living more beautiful and eternal through the making and sharing of poetry and art. This paper is the first part of a three-paper study, which includes original poetry by the author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This semester-long study attempted to investigate 122 (M: 21; F: 101) Taiwanese undergraduates' responses to bibliotherapy and two textbooks in an Advanced English Reading classroom. Data collection included an anonymous 6-point Likert scaled questionnaire with a space for free comments and the students' reflection papers to show their perceptions. The results of the study showed that bibliotherapy effectively helped the students (a) understand the importance of self-knowledge, life growth, emotion management, positive thinking, and behavior awareness, (b) understand the importance of (literature) reading, (literature) reading course, and the benefits of (literature) reading, and (c) enhance self-understanding, positive thinking, mental growth, and (positive) behavioral change. Moreover, the study found that the two textbooks could effectively boost the students' bibliotherapeutic energy, including their positive thinking ability, mental growth, and mature behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholarship suggests Black and Brown youth disproportionately experience stressors that can disrupt cognitive and emotional regulatory processes, the recognize the resilience and innovation that Black and Brown youth have demonstrated amidst exposure to systemic stressors. Given this reality, school counselors are responsible for adopting strategies that center Black and Brown youth's internal capacity to foster authentic, emotional, development. This paper describes a culturally responsive school counseling intervention that leverages evidence-based counseling theory and hip-hop cultural practices to aid student's internal social and emotional potential. Specifically, the amalgamation of Hip-Hop and Spoken Word Therapy and Motivational Interviewing offers school counselors a social and emotional learning framework designed to engage with the complex intersectionality and emotional experiences of Black and Brown youth. A conceptual framing is presented herein, followed by tangible strategies for school counselors, an illustrative case study, and implications for practice and future research. [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]

This paper discusses the father absence and/or misattachment with depleting effects psychologically, personally and collectively on the daughter. The concept unfolds through a series of a woman's dreams along with the poetry and dreams of Sylvia Plath, an American poetess from the mid-twentieth century. The perspective of Jungian analytical psychology is complimented by that of French psychoanalyst Andre Green. The cross-currents of these thinkers bring forth the interweaving of poetry and analytical psychology. Both examine the lack of attention to the detrimental effects of absent fathers and how this contributes to the well-being and creative expression of daughters – or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of literacy in the lives of women who are recovering from substance abuse. It discusses the work and products of a one-year literacy workshop in which participants were immersed in reading, writing and sharing of different writings and works of arts. The work with the women converged around their poetry, prose and free writing during their literacy workshop and journaling. Conversations about their writing revealed four themes: (1) finding one’s voice, (2) shifting self-perceptions, (3) writing as an outlet for expression and for sharing traumatic events, and (4) talking about addiction. The overarching concept of these four themes is literacy as a healing tool. This paper discusses the role of writing as a tool for healing from traumatic events and dealing with addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the level of poetry appreciation that can be achieved by university students with intellectual disabilities. Indeed, there are limited studies that provide knowledge of poetry pedagogy for teachers of this group of individuals. Going some way to address the paucity of research in this area, this paper advances an approach to poetry pedagogy which is built on three tenets: (1) Teacher and positioning; (2) Student and the poetic voice, and (3) Language, metalanguage and poetry writing. It is argued that these tenets have the potential to become a powerful tool for people with intellectual disabilities to explore their self and social identity, and a medium to question and challenge the ideational world that these individuals are situated in. For teachers, utilising this poetry pedagogy encourages a critical reflexive practice which has the potential to enhance the relationship between teachers' positions and identities and the way this is enacted in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of empty space in haiku and its potential in education is the focus of this paper. The author examines the emptiness embodied in the practice of writing haiku through examples of Basho's life and haiku, and her own experience as a teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how reading and writing processes contribute to therapist supervision as a means of working through impasse situations and facilitating the development of the therapeutic self. Texts read and written during supervision will mediate resistance, blocked narratives and containment or attention issues, as well as difficulties in change and processing developments during therapy. Texts will serve as a platform to contain the unconscious and conscious realms and shall contain the professional intrapersonal processing of the supervisee, as well as therapist-patient transference and countertransference relations and supervision relations. For this purpose, three variations of supervision shall be presented, demonstrating the transformative power of reading and writing processes for supervision in impasse situations: (1) reading and writing the therapeutic hour's summaries as a means to gain a re-observation; (2) the text's contribution in removing the patient's identity barriers; (3) the text as a release container to expose the iceberg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper includes research into the pervasiveness and dangerousness of intimate partner violence and the ways that poetry therapy can be used to help victims gain perspective on their situation. According to the World Health Organization, over 30 percent of women worldwide have experienced violence at the hands of a partner. The author's personal experience with poetry therapy in leaving an abusive relationship of 13 years is used as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on an examination of the effectiveness of a 1-h workshop designed to teach poetry as a coping tool for children and adolescents in crisis and psychiatric facilities. This study was designed to measure poetry self-efficacy, belief in the usefulness of poetry as a coping tool, and changes in feelings of isolation and loneliness. Overall, the results of this study suggest adolescents and children in crisis centers and inpatient units may both enjoy and benefit from a single exposure to poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a retrospective look, from a distance of thirty-five years, at the lasting influence of a poetry therapy class on one of its participants. It chronicles how words written by a classmate, never seen or heard from after the class dispersed, had a lasting influence on her life. It builds on a theory borrowed from science, the entanglement theory, which suggests that particles in the sub-atomic realm, once connected remain forever in contact with each other. Drawing from the framework of the class, it speculates on extrapolating the physical theory of entanglement to a theory of human connections. It suggests underlying patterns in which lives fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, patterns so complex as to be beyond human understanding. [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]

Adolescence is a challenging stage due to the multiple and rapid changes that occur. In this paper, we present a clinical case of a teen with anxiety and hypochondriac symptoms. The therapeutic treatment, ongoing, was provided in 16 sessions. The intervention was based on the assumption that health anxiety results from processes that maintain catastrophic interpretations that for itself increases anxiety. The principles of cognitive–behavioral and narrative therapy were applied in the intervention. The therapy involved providing psychoeducation, reducing the excessive focus given to the body, learning and training strategies to cope with anxiety, and constructing a life project. The case study shows the value of using metaphors as tools in the therapeutic process, and when facing life's challenges. Also, it shows the importance of using reading and writing exercises to promote change and adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Older adults suffer from narcissistic injuries due to the multiple losses faced during later stages of life. A combination of poetry therapy and self-psychology can be an effective approach to address these losses. While self-psychology focuses on the fragmented self, and aids in the development of a more cohesive self, poetry therapy provides opportunities for expression, creativity, and life review that circumvent the limitations often faced by older adults. This paper is a single case study that explores how poetry therapy can be used to generate self-object experiences that provide structure to the older adult's ego. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the subject of failure from various angles. The first angle relates to the lyrical failure, which takes place at any moment in which the mind chooses to envelop something with a familiar context instead of revealing what is new in it, or chooses to know “about” something rather than knowing the thing itself. The second angle considers the link between experiences of failure and the human ability to imagine and to live “parallel universes.” The third angle considers the experience of failure as being connected with the work of mourning. The fourth angle relates to the experience of failure as creating a dialogue with our interior sense of measure. The fifth angle considers the internal dialogue of failure as comprising within itself the unconscious fantasy of a “higher authority,” which sees beyond us and guards our steps. The sixth angle considers the experience of failure as a lyrical gesture, one which exists not in the territory of authentic truth, but in the breathing space which can be created only as the result of moving between choices. Finally, through the integration of the various angles a therapeutic case will be presented to demonstrate a situation of obsessive libidinal investment in the experience of failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the self-discovery of the author, a graduate student, in recognizing her overlapping identities of researcher, artist, and activist and the role of poetry through all of them. The journey through the identities, inspired by Catherine Etmanski's (2006) artistic journey, brings an awareness of the ability of poetry to encourage praxis. The author uses poetry to share others' voices, then she begins to share her own voice through her poetry, and finally, she begins to create spaces for others to compose their own poetry or alternative ways of making meaning. Etmanski maintains that education is the key characteristic among all means of social change, and therefore, the author concludes that her poetry, personal or research-based, as a means to educate, should be used to encourage social change. [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]

The contribution of stories in biblio-poetry therapy practice and in enhancing personal development is the focus of this paper. Writing, telling and listening to stories open up possibilities for change and new learning windows. Through expressive and communicative stories, therapeutic and developmental dia- and polylogism can expand one's imaginative space and perspectives of action in a “holding framework” and even in virtual communities. Rewriting previous “truth stories” moves and modifies one's conceptions of self, others and life relations. The inhibitions, failures and dislocations inherent in storytelling also provide valuable experiential and experimental touching/moving knowledge. The presence of the “imagined reader” and the “internal supervisor” in the writing process can help in reflecting, evaluating and steering, through meta-emotional and metacognitive processes, one's own and others’ needs, aspirations and goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]