BOOK
Using Poetry to Promote Talking and Healing
Pooky Knightsmith | Catherine Roche | Fiona Pienaar
(2016)
Additional Information
Book Details
Abstract
Poetry can prove a great way into difficult conversations in therapeutic, classroom or family settings. This book is a clear and practical guide to the use of poetry as a therapeutic tool to help explore issues surrounding mental health and emotional wellbeing.
The first part of the book provides guidance on different methods of using poetry to open up discussion. The second part consists of a collection of over 100 poems written by the author, on topics such as bullying, anxiety, bereavement, depression and eating disorders, with a range of therapeutic activities that can be used alongside each poem. The third part focuses on ways to support and encourage clients to write their own poetry and includes 50 poem writing prompts and examples.
A complete resource for anyone considering using poetry to explore difficult issues, and a creative way of exploring important mental health issues in PSHE lessons, this book will be of interest to youth, school and adult counsellors, therapists, psychologists, pastoral care teams, PSHE co-ordinators and life coaches, as well as parents.
Using Poetry to Promote Talking and Healing is a humble guide for both professionals of mental health and the public in general. By providing a heart-warming insight of a very personal experience, Pooky Knightsmith allows the reader to identify himself with the ordinary struggles of human existence in an effortless manner. An undeniable prolific written testimony of ascendancy and bravery, this book is a major trigger to personal change. The reader - and artist-to-be of its own piece of life story - is invited to set himself free of inner criticism and follow its instincts. The book offers an unexpected myriad of creative tools able to facilitate the expression of feelings. A specially worthwhile reading for any mental health professional eager to introduce creative possibilities in the therapeutic context. These tools might well work as the preface of a joint story written between therapist and client.
Sofia Correia Alegria
SENcology blog
Pooky Knightsmith, PhD, is a specialist in child and adolescent mental health and emotional wellbeing. Through her company, In Our Hands Ltd Pooky works with schools, parents and organisations to provide training on topics related to mental health awareness and support. She is Director of the Children, Young People and Schools Programme at the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust, and mental health and emotional wellbeing advisor for the PSHE Association in the UK. Pooky is also a trustee for Beat, the eating disorder charity, and the Kidstime Foundation. Pooky has personal experiences of the issues she teaches and writes about and she also writes a poem a day on her poetry blog (pookypoetry.wordpress.com). She lives in Surrey, UK.
This is a remarkable and original book. Pooky's poems, born out of her own experience and that of those she has worked with, offer us real insight into the complexities of living with and recovering from mental ill-health. The careful structure of the book encourages exploration of relevant themes and is a welcome addition to supporting recovery, when used within a therapeutic setting.
Jessica Streeting MA, School Nurse and Advisor to Public Health England (www.schoolhealthstreet.co.uk)
This is a remarkable resource not only for therapists but also for teachers of English, creative writing and drama. The prompts for discussion are very varied and raise issues of technique and the impact of a writer's choices as well as subject matter. The sections defining poetic forms and providing ways in to writing are brilliant for the classroom, and then there is the astonishing anthology ...
Jane Bunclark, Head of Academic Drama, West Buckland School, Devon
If you are "poetry-impaired" like me, Dr. Knightsmith's book is a revelation. Poetry is a language many of my depressed and suicidal adolescent clients speak fluently, but one I have never had much confidence using in my therapy. This beautiful, honest, and instructive book has given me another tool to use in my work.
Jonathan B. Singer, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Loyola University, Chicago School of Social Work and coauthor of Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner's Guide to Multi-level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention, and Postvention
Poetry's many attributes include the capacity to absorb secrets and express pain too deep to talk about. Its ability to be a creative and healing tool for poets of all life stages and ages is as limitless as your imagination. Pooky's timely, easy-to-read and user-friendly book explores how the writing and reading of poetry can be a valuable resource for communicating with the self and others.
June Alexander, mental health advocate and author of Using Writing as a Therapy for Eating Disorders
Whoever you are, whatever you do, here is a profoundly personal and moving insight into the world of emotional and mental ill-health. But this book is much more than that. Whilst many will identify with the dark depths of emotion within her poems, Dr Knightsmith's greatest achievement is in offering teachers, carers and friends not only a valuable resource to enable empathy, but also a starting point to aid and encourage recovery.
Dick Moore, Retired Head Teacher and Trainer for the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust
At last! A book that values and uses poetry as a therapeutic tool, as a way of helping us make sense of ourselves. Unlike so many stereotypes about poetry, this book is practical, unpretentious and heartfelt, with applications for helping people - young and old - way beyond mental health settings. Pooky Knightsmith has opened a very creative box for us to use.
Nick Luxmoore, school counsellor and author of Horny and Hormonal, Feeling Like Crap and Working with Anger and Young People
In this informative and powerful text, Pooky shows us how we can find our voice within the poetic words of others and in the creation of our own poetry. Poetry offers a medium of self-expression that captures so much more than words and rationale. As such, poetry offers an ideal place to find empathy, meaning and solace. To believe that "someone else understands, and someone else is listening."
Dr Helen Street, applied social psychologist and educator, The Positive Schools Initiative
This is an incredibly impressive and valuable book. Given its powerful and personal insight, it will in my view be perfect for use with professional therapists working one-to-one with clients. While the book is rightly intended for use in a one-to-one setting and not in the classroom, I have learnt much from reading it which will influence my work with the PSHE Association.
Jenny Barksfield, Deputy CEO and Senior Subject Specialist, PSHE Association
Table of Contents
Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
---|---|---|---|
Using Poetry to PromoteTalking and Healing by Pooky Knightsmith | 3 | ||
Foreword by Catherine Roche and Dr Fiona Pienaar | 9 | ||
Acknowledgements | 11 | ||
Part One - Using poetry as a way in | 13 | ||
Ideas, strategies and techniques | 13 | ||
Using poetry as a therapeutic tool | 13 | ||
Poetry as a vehicle to discuss our feelings less directly | 13 | ||
Poetry as a means for reflection | 14 | ||
Poetry as a means of exploring what we could do next | 15 | ||
Poetry as a way to show someone how we’re feeling | 15 | ||
Poetry as a reassurance that we are not alone in how we feel | 16 | ||
Writing poetry as part of recovery | 16 | ||
Part Two - An anthology of poems for discussion | 19 | ||
Abuse and bullying | 21 | ||
Anxiety and panic | 32 | ||
Loss and bereavement | 45 | ||
Depression | 57 | ||
Eating Disorders and Body Image | 80 | ||
Obsessions, Compulsions and Intrusive Thoughts | 103 | ||
Self-harm | 111 | ||
Suicide | 120 | ||
Recovery | 128 | ||
Support and Listening | 133 | ||
Part Three - Encouraging and enabling therapeutic poetry writing | 157 | ||
I’ve never written a poem before | 157 | ||
I’d rather write prose | 158 | ||
I don’t know anything about poetry | 158 | ||
What I write will be rubbish | 158 | ||
I don’t know what to write | 159 | ||
I don’t have time | 159 | ||
I’m too embarrassed to show anyone | 159 | ||
Enjoy the process! | 160 | ||
Poetic Forms | 161 | ||
Form 1: Haiku | 162 | ||
Form 2: Sonnet | 164 | ||
Form 3: Acrostic | 165 | ||
Form 4: Golden Shovel | 166 | ||
Form 5: Terza Rima | 168 | ||
Form 6: Rubáiyát | 169 | ||
Form 7: Anaphora | 171 | ||
Form 8: Pyramid | 172 | ||
Poetry Prompts | 174 | ||
Prompt 1: Dear me… | 175 | ||
Prompt 2: Something that scares you | 177 | ||
Prompt 3: Confusing figure of speech | 178 | ||
Prompt 4: A Haiku from your window | 179 | ||
Prompt 5: The last line changes everything | 180 | ||
Prompt 6: An unlikely thank you | 181 | ||
Prompt 7: An antidote to nightmares | 183 | ||
Prompt 8: First phrase, last phrase | 184 | ||
Prompt 9: Open with a question | 185 | ||
Prompt 10: The street where you grew up | 187 | ||
Prompt 11: Light and dark | 188 | ||
Prompt 12: No punctuation | 190 | ||
Prompt 13: Describe a smell | 191 | ||
Prompt 14: The meaning of life | 192 | ||
Prompt 15: School days | 193 | ||
Prompt 16: A set of instructions | 194 | ||
Prompt 17: Admiration acrostic | 195 | ||
Prompt 18: Rhyme and reason | 196 | ||
Prompt 19: How we met | 197 | ||
Prompt 20: Strip tease | 199 | ||
Prompt 21: Love is… | 201 | ||
Prompt 22: One word title | 202 | ||
Prompt 23: Fragile friendships | 203 | ||
Prompt 24: Extended metaphor | 204 | ||
Prompt 25: Your 100th birthday | 206 | ||
Prompt 26: Time difference | 207 | ||
Prompt 27: Screensaver | 209 | ||
Prompt 28: Apology | 210 | ||
Prompt 29: Simple pleasures | 211 | ||
Prompt 30: Twelve lines long | 212 | ||
Prompt 31: Doors | 213 | ||
Prompt 32: Favorite colour | 214 | ||
Prompt 33: Good news | 215 | ||
Prompt 34: Life lesson | 216 | ||
Prompt 35: New beginning | 217 | ||
Prompt 36: Reprimand | 218 | ||
Prompt 37: Pyramid | 219 | ||
Prompt 38: Forwards backwards | 220 | ||
Prompt 39: Climbing | 221 | ||
Prompt 40: Heirloom | 222 | ||
Prompt 41: The wrong response | 224 | ||
Prompt 42: Loss of sense | 225 | ||
Prompt 43: Stigma | 226 | ||
Prompt 44: Hope | 227 | ||
Prompt 45: Controversial | 229 | ||
Prompt 46: Happy sad | 231 | ||
Prompt 47: Unlikely Haiku | 232 | ||
Prompt 48: Twenty-nine | 233 | ||
Prompt 49: Holding hands | 234 | ||
Prompt 50: Random word | 235 | ||
Final Thoughts from Pooky | 236 | ||
Index of poems | 237 | ||
Index of poetry prompts | 239 |