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Using Poetry to Promote Talking and Healing

Using Poetry to Promote Talking and Healing

Pooky Knightsmith | Catherine Roche | Fiona Pienaar

(2016)

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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