How Poetry Therapy Is Changing Mental Health Care

Poetry’s rhythm, metaphor, and imagery can reduce stress, build resilience, and improve mental health.

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There’s often an indescribable feeling people experience when engaging with poetry—a catch in the throat, a sense of profound awe, or an uncanny validation. Researchers are now discovering these feelings are not just fleeting.

Poetry has long been used to soothe the soul. Its metaphors, imagery, and rhythm can translate complex fragments into integrated feelings that shift our perspective and physiology in ways that more direct forms of communication may not.

While poetry therapy, which includes reading, writing, or discussing poetry, may not replace clinical treatment, growing research suggests it can serve as a noninvasive, low-pressure tool that offers people more than just a way to foster better mental health—it provides rich artistic expression and a deeply meaningful person-centered experience.

The Science Behind Poetry Therapy

Poetry has been used in psychotherapy for decades. Laura Santner, a licensed clinical therapist and poetry therapist, has witnessed how it can help people open up and process difficult memories.

“One of the most consistent observations I have noticed is that poetry lowers the barrier to expression,“ she told The Epoch Times. ”Clients who struggle with direct conversations around grief, trauma, or depression, anger, identity, or cultural and/or political topics often find it easier to approach their experience indirectly through metaphor, imagery, or someone else’s words.”

Poetry therapy can help people communicate by providing emotional safety and distance from difficult topics while also giving them a way to connect to what they are experiencing.

Poetry interventions in medical settings also demonstrate this improved communication and emotional processing. One study found that hospitalized children who read and wrote poetry experienced significant reductions in fear, sadness, anger, worry, and fatigue.

The University of California, Irvine’s Federally Qualified Health Center in Anaheim has been integrating poetry therapy into medical practice. “Sharing poems with patients gives them an opportunity to express submerged emotions that are often directly relevant to their care,” noted a physician-written paper published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

The benefits also extend beyond the patient. Research has found that poetry programs help patients in two ways: by improving their mental health and by supporting the people who deliver their care.

Reading poems that resonate with patients helps doctors provide better care by enabling them to empathize more with their patients. “Sharing a poem or looking at a patient’s self portrait stimulates compassion, insight, and understanding with patients previously seen only as challenging,” noted the Annals paper.

One study reported that poetry programs significantly increased resilience and psychological well-being among nursing students and reduced their stress and anxiety by helping them reframe their experiences. The researchers implemented 10 sessions of Nicolas Mazza’s poetry therapy practice model, which allowed participants to share poems, song lyrics, or quotations, and reflect on how the lines resonated with them.

Another study found that poetry can also improve memory, cognitive function, reduce stress, and promote resilience in family caregivers, further suggesting that poetry can be beneficial for all.

What Happens in the Brain and Body

Clients can also feel a poem in their bodies, which helps them process stress and emotions differently than more talk-centered or cognitive-based clinical therapy approaches, Santner said.

Through poetry, memories can be processed in a safer, more indirect way. For example, “when a line of poetry resonates with someone, and they think ‘that’s exactly how it feels,’ the brain’s reward circuitry can activate. This creates a sense of relief, connection, or even pleasure,” she said.

Neurobiological research is using advanced medical imaging to measure how our brains and bodies respond to poetry. A 2017 paper published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience found that poetry can engage us in much the same manner as music, acting as a powerful stimulus for eliciting peak emotional responses—including chills and measurable goosebumps that engage the brain’s primary reward system.

Poetry appears to engage multiple brain systems at once: emotion, language, memory, and the body, highlighting why the mind-body connection can be uniquely healing for patients.

“That ‘whole-brain’ activation is part of why it can feel powerful,“ Santner said. ”In simple terms, instead of just feeling something or just talking about it, the brain is doing both at once. That pairing helps organize emotions, which can reduce their intensity over time.”

The calming effects may be due to poetry’s rhythmic tone. A study published in the American Journal of Physiology found that rhythmic speech can synchronize breathing, heart rate, and the nervous system, producing a physiological calm that mirrors controlled breathing and shifts the body out of a stressed state.

Over time, our brain’s ability to reorganize experiences through nervous system stabilization allows for shifting perspectives and reframing that encourages deeper emotional processing, cohesion, and meaning-making from difficult experiences.

 How You Can Use Poetry

Poetry’s value is in its process, not in how well you practice it, Santner said. Using a daily prompt or poem while journaling can help inspire deep reflection and gratitude, but that’s not the only way to begin, she added.

Some easy ways you can begin integrating poetry include:

• Notice your inner and outer worlds and explore images or words you feel called to.
• Read one poem a day on a topic you enjoy.
• Try “copy line” journaling, or reading a poem and writing down one line that affected you and reflecting on why.
• Get together with friends or community members and reminisce on your life through poetry, promoting group discussions on certain memories, feelings, or experiences.
• Go for a nature walk and describe what you see.
• If you’re spiritual or religious, study the Psalms of the Bible.
• Browse poetry foundations online and search for simple stories, activities, or prompts.

Don’t complicate it; poetry therapy can be as simple as you'd like it to be.

The most important thing, Santner said, is to remember that there is no such thing as being “good” at poetry. The value is in the process.

For many people, poetry becomes a simple, accessible, and powerful way to connect with themselves and others more honestly, and that’s often where real mental health change begins.