Poetry To Relieve Pain
There are times in life when we feel like our hearts are breaking into a thousand pieces, our thinking is fragmented, and our body is exhausted. We find it difficult to open our eyes, and we are in deep pain. We have the feeling that the storm is going to stay on us. At such times we can turn to poetry.
Indeed, thanks to it, we will be able to alleviate some of this pain. Follow us and together explore the wonderful connection between art and health, discover how poetry can help unload some of the suffering that we carry in our emotional backpack.
Art and health
Art is a powerful vehicle that functions both as a medium and a means of expressing conscious and unconscious questions. Through different art forms we can show what we are feeling, what we are thinking and even what we are like. This makes it easier for us to let go and reflect on ourselves.
Art is used in different areas of health for pain relief. Through music, painting, photography, theater… Everyone feels more comfortable in a discipline, but we can all use art. For example, people with terminal cancer feel better when they view things with humor. This is why, in some hospitals, they practice clown therapy. People with Alzheimer’s disease are stimulated by smells to release their emotions, and many people deal with their trauma through art therapy.
We are not saying that art helps us to stop feeling pain altogether. But let us remember that health is an integral issue, which also concerns the mind and the social. By being interconnected, the feeling of pain can be alleviated.
Poetry to relieve pain
According to the French Academy, poetry is “the art of language in verse, of its rhythms and figures, as opposed to prose; any poem ”. Words communicate emotions, thoughts and actions. Thanks to them, we can achieve a state of calm. How? ‘Or’ What ?
Poetry is full of symbols, stories and expressions that can reach the soul. They are so powerful that they reach the depths of our being. This way we can feel that someone is sharing what is happening to us.
It is as if they are going to seize the present moment. What we don’t even know how to put into words the poems say so clearly that it seems they know our innermost secrets.
Psychotherapy, school and community
Poetry as therapy
Poetry has been used for therapeutic purposes throughout human history. For example, Aristotle even spoke of catharsis through poetry for emotional healing, and in the early 19th century it was used at the psychiatric level as a reading recommendation for the mentally ill, thanks to Benjamin Rush.
The inventor of poetry therapy is Eli Griefer, a poet who volunteered at Creedmor State Hospital in New York City with psychiatrist Jack J. Leedy. They wrote down the principles of this type of therapy and suggested the use of poetry in the treatment of emotional disturbances.
In 1981, the National Poetry Therapy Association was formed. It organizes annual conferences across the United States. In recent years, an increasing number of books on poetry and therapy have appeared, some of the most famous of which have recognized poetry as a means of psychotherapy: The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics .
However, for more recent scientific research, you can explore the Journal of Poetry Therapy .
Poetry allows us to express ourselves from a safe space and, little by little, to open up. Through metaphors, she helps us transcend the meaning of words and connect deep down, as well as visualize what we feel, think and act.
However, composing it can also allow us to relieve ourselves. On the one hand, it allows us to sublimate anxiety and, on the other hand, to enter into symbols, words and images that help us generate content that we do not know how to put into words through the everyday language.
Poetry in education and the community
Poetry can be used as an educational resource to improve emotional intelligence in the classroom. It is a subject that has been well studied, but little applied in academia, as is necessary for any other subject.
On the other hand, it encourages the creative expression that helps to know oneself, to express a part of our shadow, to be compassionate, to generate empathy, to create content with depth, to identify with oneself, to relieve tensions and transform suffering into learning, among other things.
When working with communities, poetry can also be used, as it helps connect the emotions, thoughts and actions of the subjects that make up the community; it also encourages creation from its own roots, traditions and beliefs.
Communities can deepen through collective poems that unify and help transcend the group. In addition, they bring the population together by saving the value of ancestral metaphors in which stories are told full of lessons.
In short, poetry brings us closer to our darkest places. It helps us to build a path through words to give light to a new horizon. It soothes the soul by the expression of our shadows. A form of introspection that soothes pain and helps us transform it, transcend it.
Our thoughts Music is a universal language capable of arousing unique emotions and feelings.
