Diane Kaufman, assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at University Hospital in Newark is one of growing number of physicians and therapists who use "poetry therapy" to help their patients cope emotionally with their illness reports Rohan Mascarenhas in New Jerseys The Star-Leger.When people listen to words, there is a chemical change in their bodies. ... Poetry does not have any side-effects, and you can always get a refill.
In the picture (left) poet John Fox discusses the amputation of one of his legs with audience members at a Poetry in Medicine Day at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School.
3 comments:
The only kind of poetry I like are limericks. :)
I hope its good poetry for the patient's sake. I know bad poems can exacerbate mental health.
My good friend, psychoanalyst and psychologist Joan Hunt, now deceased, had been running Poetry and Literature Therapy classes in the 1980s and 1990s. For some years I ran poetry workshops for people having mental health problems - from 1993 - 1997.
There was little doubt that poetry helped alleviate many psychological conditions.
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