Poetry is increasingly used in therapy, and it already occupies a central place in expressive arts therapies. This book is the first to explicitly combine theory and practice from the field of expressive arts with poetry and poetics. The book offers both a guide and poetic encouragement for using poetry in expressive arts work. Within this arts context, poetry is offered as a way to create hope and confidence, providing clients with a platform for healing, reconciliation, problem solving, and personal and professional development. Each chapter uses examples of poetry to illustrate the ideas of the chapter. With an outstanding contribution to the field of expressive arts theory and practice, this book is essential for people wanting to use an integrative arts-based approach to help their clients build resilience and foster sustainable, positive change in their lives.

For decades, poetry therapy has been formally recognized as a valuable form of treatment, and it has been proven effective worldwide with a diverse group of clients. The second edition of Poetry Therapy, written by a pioneer and leader in the field, updates the only integrated poetry therapy practice model with a host of contemporary issues, including the use of social media and slam/performance poetry. It’s a truly invaluable resource for any serious practitioner, educator, or researcher interested in poetry therapy, bibliotherapy, writing, and healing, or the broader area of creative/expressive arts therapies.

Poetry is increasingly used in therapy, and it already occupies a central place in expressive arts therapies. This book is the first to explicitly combine theory and practice from the field of expressive arts with poetry and poetics. The book offers both a guide and poetic encouragement for using poetry in expressive arts work. Within this arts context, poetry is offered as a way to create hope and confidence, providing clients with a platform for healing, reconciliation, problem solving, and personal and professional development. Each chapter uses examples of poetry to illustrate the ideas of the chapter. With an outstanding contribution to the field of expressive arts theory and practice, this book is essential for people wanting to use an integrative arts-based approach to help their clients build resilience and foster sustainable, positive change in their lives.

This resource comprises a collection of accessible, flexible, tried-and-tested activities for use with people in a range of care and therapy settings, to help them explore their knowledge of themselves and to make sense of their experiences. Among the issues addressed by the activities are exploring physical changes, emotional trauma, interpersonal problems and spiritual dilemmas. Designed with simple and inexpensive art tools in mind for individual and group activities of varying difficulty, it also includes real-life anecdotes that bring the techniques to life. This new edition contains extra activities and resources to promote the continuing wellness of patients and clients outside of therapy settings. This new edition of the Expressive Arts Activity Book is full of fun, easy, creative ideas for workers in hospitals, clinics, schools, hospices, spiritual and religious settings, and in private practice.

This accessible book explores the therapeutic possibilities of poetry and stories, providing techniques for facilitating personally relevant and growth-enhancing sessions. The author provides ideas for writing activities that emerge from this discussion, and explains how participants can create their own poetic and narrative pieces.

The field of expressive arts is closely tied to the work of therapeutic change. As well as being beneficial for the individual or small group, expressive arts therapy has the potential for a much wider impact, to inspire social action and bring about social change. The book's contributors explore the transformative power of the arts therapies in areas stricken by conflict, political unrest, poverty or natural disaster and discuss how and why expressive arts works. They look at the ways it can be used to engage community consciousness and improve social conditions whilst taking into account the issues that arise within different contexts and populations. Leading expressive arts therapy practitioners give inspiring accounts of their work, from using poetry as a tool in trauma intervention with Iraqi survivors of war and torture, to setting up storytelling workshops to aid the integration of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel. Offering visionary perspectives on the role of the arts in inspiring change at the community or social level, this is essential reading for students and practitioners of creative and expressive arts therapies, as well as psychotherapists, counsellors, artists and others working to effect social change.