In early 2023, the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) decided not only to include poems in their highly respected professional publication, but also to publish commentaries that examine each poem’s theme, context, and relationship to physical or mental health. The decision was based on the results of several studies showing that, in addition to enjoyment and entertainment, both patients and their healthcare providers can find comfort and meaning in poetry.
Multiple research projects have confirmed that reading and writing poetry have the potential to help people express their feelings, emotions, and creativity and also feel a sense of empowerment, recognition, and renewal. Poetry can help patients and their caregivers find meaning in their existence and in the illnesses and losses they’ve experienced throughout their lives.
While poetry belongs to the humanities, and often focuses on the subjects of love and nature, there is also a strong, historic connection to science and medicine. In fact, several well-known poets have also been practicing medical doctors, most notably John Keats and William Carlos Williams, transforming the pain they witnessed and experienced into written forms of beauty. Likewise, more than a few writers of novels and other prose have turned to poetry to express themselves when they fell ill, including John Updike and Clive James. This history of patient-poets and care-provider-poets led to the creation of the popular, annual Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, with cash awards for writers of previously unpublished poetry with a medical theme.
In one study designed to promote an empathetic attitude and approach to mental health care, more than 90 psychiatric nursing students were asked to write simple poetry that represented their feelings about mental health and mental health services. Their writings most frequently reflected feelings of sadness, fear, love, suffering, anguish, and hatred. Some of the words used to describe such feelings included emptiness, loneliness, crying, and helplessness. The students’ work often reflected an association between mental health and suicidal ideation. At the same time, the researchers found recurring themes of peace, respect, empathy, pride, affection, and love in the students’ poetry.
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