Poetry as therapy.

Abstract

In the practice of general psychiatry, art therapy in the form of painting is widely employed. Music and drama similarly provide regular treatment occasions. The use of poetry is less familiar and is little discussed in the literature. This paper reviews a therapeutic liaison, happening largely by chance, which depended almost exclusively upon an exchange of verse. The relationship between the processes of psychotherapy, on the one hand, and the writing and reading of poetry, on the other, is suggested and illustrated by the patient's writings. It may be that good poetry, like successful psychotherapy, arises from disturbed emotions only when they are given resolution and form. Exceptionally the two go hand-in-hand.