Today I Heard the Angel Gabriel Blow His Horn While I Was Facing the Waves!
The Problem With American Women: The Commodification of Sexuality in American Culture
Of course I realize that this title was going to attract your attention.
But if you’re expecting a misogynistic rant about my failures to attract American women for sex, love and money while listing an arbitrary itinerary of American female failings (heads not flat enough on top to rest a beer on; always changing their minds from what I want to what THEY want; too busy working, taking care of children, cleaning the house, running errands and cooking to dress up in lingerie and give me a poll dance [double entendre intended]), then you will be sadly disappointed.
What James Thurber endearingly referred to the war between the sexes is a significantly different battlefield than in his age of single income affluence when women couldn’t own property without the consent of their husband or father or older brother.
Economically, socially, politically, psychologically and most importantly, sexually
My age grants me the memory of what there was before what there is now.
My adolescence coincided with the 70s, the decade in which the formant of social and technological changes of the 50s and 60s came to fruition into permanence in the 70s.
Readily available contraception, nascent computational technologies and the emancipation of the African American all spread ripples that were waves of change, like an asteroid had struck and plunged into the center of the collective, American cultural pool. African Americans and their other than colored allies, strode the lunch counters,school buses and schools that had been violently forbidden them.
The British adoption of the African American sound and its subsequent export back to America via the Beatles, the Stones and other blues based white boy bands infiltarted the American psyche.
Elvis Presley no longer played n*g**r music that stirred the white youth into sexual frenzy, but now was seen as performing classic Americana, to the extent that Richard Nixon invited him to the Whitehouse and made Elvis a federal cop.
Through the 70s I saw women becoming bus drivers, cops, doctors, lawyers, business women. I saw black faces on my colored TV. And the emancipation kept rippling. Homosexuality became Gay.
Mexicans became strikers, fighting for a decent wage.
Asians became Kung Fu fighters, although their star had to be David Carradine not Bruce Lee. Movies became the subversion of the times. Altman, Coppola, Scorsese, Woody Allen, et al chronicled the narrative of change and their audiences applauded in self-recognition.
But in many ways the change in over half the human population (51%) was most significant of all. As women regained their economic power through wider employment and enterprise opportunity coupled with their control over their reproductive rights, the right not to get pregnant from having sex, our society as a whole began to shift it’s world view.
The feminine became mainstream. Women were taken more and more seriously by men, not just as objects of desire and potential child bearing mates, but as agents of agency and volition all their own.
The masculine was being checked.
This however was no bed of emancipation roses.
With women gaining more social power, many men felt that the power of their patriarchy was under threat. Many men embraced the reality of neater, gentler, more considerate and nurturing values infecting the mainstream of alpha male dominance. But many more did not. As women gained prominence as agents of their own agency, many men began to begrudge the loss of their sex toys.
If women were less and less beholden to men for their economic and social status, then why should they continue sleeping with them or bearing their children?
So with the positive social changes came the desire to maintain control over what was being lost. What was being lost was the masculine dominance and control over the feminine. In response, men began to alienate themselves from the very people that they loved and wanted to be close to. The perceived loss of power trumped (pun intended), the loss of intimacy.
This was manifested by the explosion of the porn industry in the mid to late 1970s.
If women no longer submitted their sexuality, their reproductive volitions to men, then men needed to extract what it was that they thought they desired in women: their image, their sexuality, their allure.
Americans are the most effective industrializers of human commodities since Nazi Germany created their factories of death.
Capitalism has always been about two things: the assignation of value to market demand and second, the exploitation of labour for the sake of “surplus value” i.e. money, Capital.
Capitalism means money, the value of which supersedes all other human values as the ultimate measure of humanity.
.
In true American Consumer Capitalist fashion, America created the porn industry on an industrial scale, hiring women in the thousands to perform to male ideals, to submit to masculine desires.
Men, having lost the intimacy of their gender dynamic could now afford to “buy” the fulfillment of their assumed entitlement, their deserved desires. Even before the internet, (which ultimately bankrupted the porn industry by making imagery, the sound and motion of performative sex free), porn pervaded every corner of male culture.
If you are a woman or don’t know this already, you need to understand that every man you have every met or will meet, including your partner, your father, your uncle and your sons have masturbated to pornography until climax.
This is a fact, not merely my opinion.
There are no men who don’t use porn as a tool of literal self relief.
The problem of course congeals because porn is not sex; or rather it is feigned sex, performative sex. The actors who are hired to expose themselves, to engage in the myriad of soft to hard core scenarios that are delivered as commodities, don’t necessarily enjoy what they are doing. They’re doing it for the money, not the pleasure.
Of course, as in any acting, some performers are more fully immersed in their roles than others but the fact remains that without money, there would be no porn.
Pornography is the ultimate commodification of human beings.
I write this not as a Puritan (who have their own sexual problems). I write this as a partaker (seldom and less and less), but nonetheless a user of pornography.
I have watched pornography with women who claim, at least to me, that they enjoy it. But mainly they say that they enjoy my enjoyment of it. The more turned on I am the more turned on she is: and that’s the crux of the dilema.
Pornography is NOT sexuality, it’s not sex; it’s fake sex.
When fake sex begins to replace real sex we begin to lose our discernment of humanity on an emotional, visceral level.
There is no way I can make love, have sex with a woman without completely surrendering to my empathy for who she is as a human being. I want to use her for my own gratification, yes; but I equally want her to use me for her gratification. I desire her to desire me. The more she desires me,, the more desire I feel for her.
In pornography, fake sex, all the desire is one way.
There’s the object, commodified, paid for and thus acquired and then there’s the recipient of the product’s desire, who has paid for its delivery.
There’s no collaboration, there’s no carnal dialogue, no exchange and no empathy.
There’s no sex, really.
It’s Important at this Juncture to Address the Metaphysics of Sex and Sexuality.
The sexual act, when engaged in, is one of the most powerful psychological/emotional and physical behaviors that human being experience. Speaking phenomenologically, as a participant (rather than an observer), the human body undergoes dramatic physiological and chemical variance when sexually aroused and when engaging (again, NOT observing; ENGAGING) in sex. 
Biochemically, the body’s hormones trigger a radical change to the body chemistry and psychological experience and behavior of the participants. When we are aroused it feels as if another force is acting through us. We lose our inhibitions and surrender to our senses. We are consumed by our desires for another’s body.
We become more in and connected to the moment of our gratification.
We become simultaneously emotionally charged and emotionally vulnerable. When we are with someone we trust, someone we have affection for, our emotions are hightened and stimulated into a state of adoration.
It is no coincidence that we culturally refer (across all cultures, by the way), to the sexual act as ‘Making Love’. Because it is precisely Love that we are experiencing during this hightened state of transcendental arousal.
Moreover, our senses become dilated, our focus dissipates into a primarily sensory experience. Our sense of time alters, even space appears to contract to the realm within reach of our senses.
As we reach orgasm we lose our normal sense of self and can experience the melding of one into two and then into one. Most of all, we experience pleasure and ultimately ecstasy.
On an experiential level, good sex is psychedelic, reminding the body and mind of our natural lack of separation from the place and time we are in and who we are with. The spiritual value of good sex is better explored by the Hindus and the concepts of Tantric sex which really amounts to treating sex as a meditative activity, an active Yoga of mind, Spirit and mind. 
Good sex is curative.
It relieves us of our daily suffering we have grown numb to. It relieves anxiety and fear, it grounds us in our own bodies and minds. But most of all, it connects us to another (or others) through a transcendence of our senses into a higher state of awareness.
Sex is the LSD anyone can take any time and still go to work the next day (or same afternoon).
Sex is so good for us, for everyone that of course, like LSD they had to make it illegal!
Or if not strictly illegal, controlled by the church, by the state and by the inhibitions of guilt and shame that were taught to us. Taught? Brainwashed, more exactly!
All of us have been abused into associating sex with shame.
Because nature wants us to fuck, urgently, imperatively; and nature must by every and any means, be controlled.
Good Sex is the key to the survival of our species. The primeval drive to procreate is so powerful that it even supersedes the mind’s normal self awareness of causality and consequence. We don’t give a fuck, we just want to fuck and that is where the social context steps in.
Such a strong, spiritual nay metaphysical, force that affects every aspect of the human’s being really can’t be controlled. One’s sex drive can be regulated, restrained even, but ultimately the force prevails or the subject becomes ill.
Sexuality has always threatened organized society precisely because everyone knows it can’t really be controlled.
The Bonono chimpanzees of Africa, our closest biological relatives on the planet spend most of their day fucking, when they’re not eating. Bononos fuck everyone, males fuck males, females fucks females, fathers fuck their daughter, sons fuck their mothers. A tribe of Bononos are a virtual ongoing orgy. Even when they’re not fucking, Bononos will engage is mass masturbation behavior especially when feeling anxious or fearful of predators.
This is what nature provides and what nature wants.
Now humans, on the other hand, have developed complex social labyrinths determining status and pedigree based mainly on language and power.
So the less Bonono and more human people became, the greater the need to control sexual behavior. Taboos evolved. Some pragmatic, such as the incest taboo; but others less so, like the pervading Victorian era myth that good women didn’t want to have sex.
With the advent of the so-called Sexual Revolution facilitated by the mass availability of the pill, as well as the misunderstanding of the anthropologist Margaret Mead’s study of the sexual habits of Polynesian people, sex once again began to assume its default position within human behavior. So ofcourse, the powers-that-be needed to exercise firmer control over what cannot ultimately be controlled.
The tragedy of the Human Comedy is that we always try to control what cannot be and should not be controlled.
Capitalism in its neurotic quest to commodify everything, conquered sex by commodifying it. By deconstructing the blessed act into it’s sensory components that could be sold piecemeal. Like a corporate takeover that strip mines a successful company for its assets. American Capitalism pornographies sexuality, made it an observer’s obsession rather than a participants spiritual celebration.
By disarming the subjective participant into an observer, our modern society is able to regulate our sexuality, determin fresh taboos and grant licence to what was previously prohibited as long as it can be sold for profit.
Thus homosexuality was allowed to be Gay.
Because Capitalism is an international conspiracy to dehumanize our species, the commodification of our sexuality is not contrained to American shores. It’s just much worse and more intense here.
American women especially, have been subjected to the most abusive dimension of this dehumanization. I speak from the personal experience of having lived in half a dozen mainly European cultures, having married an English woman and courted many a non American woman. (Well not MANY, but enough to draw an accurate comparison).
The American woman, having more recently reached a level of economic, ediucative and social emancipation (but still not paid the same amount for the same job as her male counterpart), determined to seize the reins of her own sexuality. And compared to the early 20th century, have seemingly succeeded in doing so.
Reproductive rights and women’s sexual health are currently political issues for the presidential election.
The great Sigmund Freud made his reputation and foundation of Psychoanalysis based on treating bourgeois (upper middle class) women for the affliction of “Hysteria”.
Hysteria was a common diagnosis in the early part of the 20th century and medical doctors all through Europe received the wives of welathy industrialists to cure them of this mass affliction. Brutal practices such as ECT and even lobotomies were applied to “cure” these poor, afflicted women.
The symptoms of Hysteria were depression, listlessness and non submissive behaviors. If a woman argued, then she might be suffering from Hysteria and rushed to an institution to be cured.
But one of the foremost symptoms of Hysteria as reported by the husbands of these unfortunate women of the time was seeking sexual attentions from their partners.
Yes!
Wanting to have sex with her husband, to surrender to that primal state of natural human being, was considered at one time a sure tell sign of hysteria and thus remedied by electric shock, ice water plunges and even lobotomy!
As I write this I shudder at the mere thought of the extremes of human cruelty and callous indifference.
Fortunately, Freud’s approach was to actually listen to his women patients and when he wasn’t prescribing them cocaine, he wrote down their words, their confessions into his famous case histories that eventually were the foundation of his “talking cure” and theories of child sexuality.
His daughter Anna Freud furthered her father’s paradigm-shifting approach and founded the field of Child Psychology, studying and reporting the effects of sexuality on our natures and happiness as adult individuals.
Freud famously posed the question “What do women want?” and ultimately through years of interviews and research, answered his own question.
What we all want, Good Sex!
So what’s the problem with American women?
They have been co-opted into the business of sex to the extent that they have begun to commodify their own sexuality and sell it to men. Not as prostitutes, although there are plenty of both male and female versions of this. No, they have begun to deconstruct their own sexualities as components to be observed, not loved, not actually fucked, but seen to be sexual..
They have harnessed the sexualities of alienated lonely, pathetic men into a market force that they can supply. Only Fans is just the latest example of this. American women have countered the tyranny of the patriarchal gaze by consciously manipulating it for their material gain. Emancipation has become self-slavery.
Sex is now a power struggle as to who dominates who, commercially, transactionally.
Instead of connectivity, of intimacy and shared sensualities, sex for the American woman has become transactional. ‘What do I get out of it?’, is as strong a calling as nature’s pull. Stronger in the form of manifesting neurotic behaviors such as manipulation, salesmanship, intentional confusion and chaotic communications.
Since sex is now a transaction, the only question becomes who gains the most?. Pleasure and fulfillment are secondary considerations. Intimacy, even Love, a fairy tale you grow out of to join the “real world”
Surely this is true of European women as well, I hear someone saying.
Yes, but not so much so in my experience.
English, French, Italian and Spanish women are no more promiscous than their American counterparts. However, in general European women know what they want, know who they want and don’t want it from and are much more comfortable in their sexuality as well as expressing it than American women are.
American women seem at times to be almost afraid of their own sexuality, afraid of losing control, of surrendering to lust. This is by no means healthy!
Whereas Europeans just don’t make that big a deal out of it. They enjoy sex because they know it’s good for them and if it doesn’t work out, c’est la vie; there’s always other experiences with better partners down the line.
In Europe sex is treated more like a fine meal.
Necessary for healthy living and worthy of enjoyment. Bad sex, like a bad meal is to be avoided and hopefully not repeated. But you don’t know until you try it, right? Just taste a little, you might like it.
Good sex, like a good meal is literally a divine experience, a jubilant celebration of the senses (btw, anything accompanied by the right wine is a ticket to paradise).
I have enjoyed meals in Paris bistros, Greek tavernas, Italian Tratorias thate can only be described in transcendetnal terms.
Likewise I have loved, made love to, had love with women of Europe that will adhere to my memory like a childhood. Respectful, tender loving moments that will never escape me.
Unfortunately, outside of the adolescent fumblings of highschool and early college, I have yet to experience the same level of encounter here in my native land. I attribute my failure to connect as an aspect of Capitalist culture. I cannot bridge the transactional nature of American sexuality; to me it all seems like a verision of pornography or even prostitution to me; an impression which has been reinforced most recently when a woman friend of mine suggested I hire a professional sex worker to share intimacy with.
I was genuinely shocked as if it had been a male friend, I could have understood his clumsy solution. This friend knew me and yet her choice of assistance was to suggest I buy the services of a sex. I am MUCH TOO CHEAP, to ever consider this as a practical option. Besides why wouldn’t the woman PAY ME, for my « services »?
My friend was a well intended American woman, a peer who seriously suggested that my path to sexual fulfillment could be purchased and transacted rather than pursued or danced for.
I can only conclude that the sexuality of the American woman has been seriously compromised by a cultural and societal appartus constructed by men but now reinforced by women. This apparatus generates sexual neurosis and ultimately dehumanizes and devalues the most powerful and wonderful experience people can give each other.
So What’s Your Solution, Sherlock?
Well, not cocaine.
Far be it for me to prescribe remedies for societal ills; even my arrogance has limits!
I would fall back on conversation. People need to start talking about sex a lot more, especially to the people we want to have sex with.
A lot more.
The social rituals are still too complex. When I first met my future wife, we had sex the same night we met because we were both attracted to each other and trusted each other enough to act on our desires. My beautiful daughter Olivia is a product of unbridled, unihibited sexuality as she was and continues to be the best thing in my life.
Men, being stupider than women, need to be less coy and less aggressive at the same time. We need to learn to ask for what we want without acting like petulant children when refused. We need to cultivate a taste for the sensual, not just the sex; everything surrounding and leading up to and following the act, not just the act itself. We need to learn how to be better lovers, not technically but emotionally.
Remember you men reading these words, the number one cause of female mortality in the US, more than disease, more than accidents is men. So just keep in mind that women have just cause to be wary of us.
And women: you lovely, lovely, horrific creatures must learn how to celebrate your sexuality, not as a tit for tat transaction, but as something for yourself. Something you enjoy in itself for it’s own sake, not for status and/or material gain. Women must learn to be joyful participants, equal partners in the sensual dance of lust and desire.
Learn how to clearly signal what you want from a man. Remember, men are stupider than you are, so make sure your signals are clear and obvious. SPELL IT OUT that you want to fuck when you want to. Protect yourself, of course, but when you trust a man and trust your own desires, surrender to the power of your libido.
You have nothing to lose but your inhibition and your neurosis.
Learn how to fuck with gusto, with tenderness, with celebration. Embrace the moment you can step out of your daily concerns and like wild Bonono chipanzees be animals for a night (or a day, or an afternoon or the entire weekend).
Celebrate the Body Electric!
And have no expectations. Sex happens in the moment not in the anxiety of the future nor the nostalgia of the past. Keep your emotional baggage to the size where it can fit comfortably in the overhead locker of you flight. Then buckle up and fly baby, fly!
I guarantee that you will be happier, healthier and free from the constraints and manipulations of commodification. You will become your better self by embracing what is most precious about being human.
Have a divine meal of an other, feast on the sensuous pleasures you can unfurl from within your own sacred being and discover within an other.
Don’t feel guilt or shame or poker-player gaming, feel joy, scream out loud, laugh, cry and be free.
For what it’s worth that’s my advice.
I leave you not with my words but that of Patti Smith’s:
“Love is an Angel Disguised as Lust”
thanks for reading and have A Great Flying Fuck!
The Stars
There are few shreds of dignity left
When you drown face down in your own back street gutter.
You can cry out as loud as an archangel’s horn, if you like.
It won’t do you any good, or any harm either.
You still can’t silence the wind or turn back the tide.
Fate is nothing personal.
It’s just the universe catching up and then passing you by.
Your dream of yourself evaporates,
Forming clouds that obscure the night’s sky.
The stars are leaving you now, blinking out one by one.
This is the last moment of your own
self-awareness.
Your last chance to figure out what the fuck’s been going on.
It’s very much like the moment you first awoke
Although your mother’s smile is nowhere to be found
All that remains of her unlimited love is your fast fading memory
The sound of her voice calling out to you to come home now,
In the far distance,
From where the stars have gone to mourn your passing.
Confetti
There’s an emptiness at the heart of any space:
The air that escapes a room; an unanswered echo, a vacant womb.
There’s an emptiness in my heart
That reminds me
All of my ideas are empty.
Floating leaves from a fumbled folder.
Coloured streams falling from the sky.
This emptiness reminds me
How slight my desires really are
How gently they fall from the sky
A confetti of mercy and discarded emotions,
They are in the end,
Compared to nothing,
Merely the litter from an emptied mind.
Let Your Mind Run Free!
Let You Mind Run Free
If you love your mind just let it go.
If you lose your mind, don’t worry.
It will find you again, eventually.
Trekking across the tundra,
Scaling the icy ridges
Crossing a vale of tears.
At midnight in the Dead of the Night.
Just to get back home to you.
Merely moonlight pausing to reflect upon still waters
No need to be concerned.
In future, make sure your back gate latch is secure
Before letting your mind run free.
Let Your Mind Run Free II
If you love your mind just let it go.
If you lose your mind, don’t worry.
It will find you again, eventually.
Trekking across the tundra; scaling the icy ridges
Crossing a vale of tears.
At midnight in the Dead of the Night.
Your mind will tap you on the shoulder
You’ll jump
And your mind will say ‘Well, here you are’!
Sitting alone in the last place I looked.
While I am
Merely moonlight pausing to reflect upon still waters.
There’s no need to be concerned.
Next time, just make sure your back gate is securely latched
Before you let your mind run free.
One Without the Other
Life and death are dark and light.
Like black and white,
You need one to see the other.
For without the other,
You will never see the one.
This is What Happens After You Die
This is What Happens After You Die
I’m still choking on my own blood.
As it slowly fills my lungs.
I am drowning inside myself
The blood is mine;
the air is gone,
Now so am I.
After death, there’s nothing more than that same familiar empty space
waiting for your thoughts to refill it
Infinite & Eternal
in every direction;.
both up and down and beyond before.
encircled by the horizon.
This emptiness where your awareness doesn’t so much ‘go’
as recollect that it’s always been here.
Look through this persisting dream!
there is no afterlife because nothing,
not even memory, is really destroyed.
just transformed.
Into particles
into wavicles
into higher frequencies,
your mind no longer fathoms.
so you leave it,
your mind, behind.
Crystal
liquid,
gas,
plasma.
aware is the fifth state of matter.
Being is Becoming Still
Existence is a limitless screen of emptiness,
Jubilant celebration
And gratitude for the joyous exhaustion in the rolling of a boulder up a steep hill.
Tripping over our thoughts like loosened cobblestones,
The truth is a truce we struck with uncertainty ages ago.
After losing our desperate struggle…
To cling to some kind of hope buried deep at the root of our own awareness
I am fearful of fully failing myself.
But I love myself best when I am alone with eternity.
Secure and supported by this very clarity.
A Short History of Poetry Therapy: Practice and Perfection by Igor Goldkind
On FaceBook, a discussion where questions are posed and answered: https://www.facebook.com/realpoetrytherapy/
The healing effect of words has long been recognized. As far back as 4000 BCE, early Egyptians wrote words on papyrus, dissolve them in liquid, and gave them to those who were ill as a form of medicine. In more recent history, reading and expressive writing have been employed as supplementary treatments for those experiencing mental or emotional distress. Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital established in the United States, employed this approach as early as the mid-1700s. 
In the early 1800s, Dr. Benjamin Rush introduced poetry as a form of therapy to those being treated. In 1928, poet and pharmacist Eli Griefer began offering poems to people filling prescriptions and eventually started “poem-therapy” groups at two different hospitals with the support of psychiatrists Dr. Jack L. Leedy and Dr. Sam Spector. After Griefer’s death, Leedy and others continued to incorporate poetry into the therapeutic group process, eventually coming together to form the Association for Poetry Therapy (APT) in 1969.
Librarians also played a major role in the development of this approach to therapy. Arleen Hynes, one pioneer in this area, was a hospital librarian who began reading stories and poems aloud, facilitating discussions on the material and its relevance to each individual in order to better reach out to those being treated and encourage healing. In 1980, all leaders in the field were invited to a meeting to formalize guidelines for training and certification. At that meeting, 
the National Association for Poetry Therapy (NAPT) was established.
As interest grew, several books and articles were written to guide practitioners in the practice of poetry therapy. Hynes and Mary Hynes-Berry co-authored the 1986 publication Bibliotherapy – The Interactive Process: A Handbook. More recently, Nicholas Mazza outlined a model for effective poetry therapy, also discussing its clinical application, in Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice.
The Journal of Poetry Therapy, established in 1987 by the NAPT, remains the most comprehensive source of information on current theory, practice, and research.
There is also a relationship between psychological healing and incantations; either repeated as a musical chant by the patient or in fact recited by the attending medicine man. Modern medicine and science of course scoff at the notion of magical incantations having healing or restorative powers as so much superstition. But this, of course, begs the question that if recitations and incantations had no evidential resort and no beneficial property then why would every single human culture have adopted the method and repeated it for several thousand years? Surely if there was nothing to vibrating air with the sound of one’s breath as well as the added stimulation of associative meaning being read cognitively by the patient’s mind; we would have given it and its sisters, singing and chanting aeons ago.
I am 
not advocating a supernatural or spiritual causation for the effectiveness of poetry as a healing agent but rather the supra-natural mystical cause which is grounded first in human nature and behavior for which can be a myriad of imprecise explanations; none of which explain why it works.
Today, poetry therapy is practised internationally by hundreds of professionals, including poets, psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, social workers, educators and librarians. The approach has been used successfully in a number of settings—schools, community centers, libraries, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and correctional institutions, to name a few.
How Does Poetry Therapy Work?
As part of therapy, some people may wish to explore feelings and memories buried in the subconscious and identify how they may relate to current life circumstances. Poetry is beneficial to this process as it can often be used as a vehicle for the expression of emotions that might otherwise be difficult to express
•Promote self-reflection and exploration, increasing self-awareness and helping individuals make sense of their world
•Help individuals redefine their situation by opening up new ways of perceiving reality
•Help therapists gain deeper insight into those they are treating
• In general, poetry therapists are free to choose from any poems they believe offer therapeutic value, but most tend to follow general guidelines.
It is recommended selected poems be concise, address universal emotions or experiences, offer some degree of hope, and contain plain language. Some poems commonly used in therapy are: “The Journey” by Mary Oliver “Talking to Grief” by Denise Levertov “The Armful” by Robert Frost “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman “Turtle Island” by Gary Snyder The poetry of Alan Watt, Allen Ginsberg and others.
Although the selection of material is often by the therapist, those being treated might be asked to bring to therapy a poem or other form of literature they identify with, as this may also provide valuable insight into their feelings and emotions.
My Technique in Poetry Therapy
A few different models of poetry therapy exist, but the one I’ve had the most success with is a Four Phased Progression of Attention:
Recognition – Focus – Intention – Action
In the receptive/recognition phase, the poet therapist merely guides the subject to focus on their issue. The aim is to establish concentration and cognitive focus on the details of the issue which are not revealed to the poet/therapist. Only until the poet/therapist feels confident that the subject is cognitively attuned to and non verbally focussed on the problem or issue of concern that they begin to ask suggestive questions as to how the subject feels, not thinks about their subject.
This provocation of emotion usually comes in three distinct phases of emotional content:
I. First is the one of the predicament, then the subject first becomes aware of the existence of the issue. This is the gateway phase where anticipatory feelings are registered and ideally conveyed through the prompting of the poet/therapist.
II. Then there is the full throttle stage when anticipation of the issue has given way to full experience of all emotions related to the issue. This is usually overwhelming (or it wouldn’t be “an issue” in the first place), and it is tantamount that the poet/guide leads the subject through distinct words to describe the layers of emotions experienced by the subject. Language and the use of the words is the key here because emotions always come in clusters of complexity that make it difficult for both poet/therapist and subject to distinguish and focus on underlying and suppress emotions.
“What kind of anger do you feel?”
“How would you describe your sadness”
“How much shame do you feel?
“What would you compare it to?”
Are typical of the questions a poet therapist would ask the subject.
This is a sophisticated method of word association but rather than creating bridges between seemingly disparate words, the goal is to drill down to the core emotions about the issue by uncovering and refining the language the subject has chosen.
Achieving exactitude of description is the task at hand. The Poet/Therapist makes careful notation of everything the subject says towards describing their emotion. It is important to keep them focused and not to succumb to intellectual distraction. Thoughts are illusions, emotions are facts.
Getting the subject to correctly and precisely describe the emotional facts of the matter at hand is the objective
III. The final phase is the exit strategy.
How do the feelings commence to recede? How does the issue recede back into the background? What are the parting emotions? Is there anxiety about the leaving? The anticipation of an issue yet unresolved? Or is the issue impermeable and subject to a rhythmic return?
Again, the subject’s wording, their adjectives, adverbs and phrases are the material of the poem.
At this point, there is usually a short break to give time for the subject to recover from the emotional transitions and for the Poet/Therapist to briefly skim their notes and begin to focus on the flow of adjectives. It is preferable if possible, to compose what amounts to a first draft, a flow of words which the poet can read back to the subject to confirm the accuracy of the flow.
At this first reading stage, it is possible to start interjecting logical bridges between the emotional descriptors. This is the creative factor unleashed. The Poet must be led by the subject to link coherent sequences between the emotional states. The poet suggests and the subject confirms or vetoes the phraseology, one line at a time.
Now we arrive at a second draft which is the property of the subject. It is their poem for which it is crucial that the subject now read the poem aloud and take ownership of its content. The subject can redraft the poem a third time in making it their own. But the physicality of uttering the words they have chosen to express their emotional state is an act of ownership and closure.
The Poet/Therapist can either email the finished poem to the subject, hand them his/her notes or rewrite the poem into a legible form. In any case, it is important that the Poet/Therapist ascribes the authorship of the poem to the client. If the client is hesitant to put their name to the poem than something is lacking in the poem and must be redressed or indeed started over again.
The key to the entire exercise is freedom of expression, honesty and then refinement; exacting the poem.
Other Approaches and Other Models
The process of writing can be both cathartic and empowering, often freeing blocked emotions or buried memories and giving voice to one’s concerns and strengths. Some people may doubt their ability to write creatively, but therapists can offer to support by explaining they do not have to use rhyme or a particular structure. Therapists might also provide stem poems from which to work or introduce sense poems for those who struggle with imagery. A Poet/Therapist might also share a poem with the individual and then ask them to select a line that touched them in some way and then use that line to start their own poem.
In group therapy, poems may be written individually or collaboratively. Group members are sometimes given a single word, topic, or sentence stem and asked to respond to it spontaneously. The contributions of group members are compiled to create a single poem which can then be used to stimulate group discussion. In couples therapy, the couple may be asked to write a dyadic poem by contributing alternating lines.
The symbolic/ceremonial component involves the use of metaphors, storytelling, and rituals as tools for effecting change. Metaphors, which are essentially symbols, can help individuals to explain complex emotions and experiences in a concise yet profound manner. Rituals may be particularly effective to help those who have experienced a loss or ending, such as a divorce or death of a loved one, to address their feelings around that event. Writing and then burning a letter to someone who died suddenly, for example, may be a helpful step in the process of accepting and coping with grief.
How Can Poetry Therapy Help You?
Poetry therapy has been used as part of the treatment approach for a number of concerns, including borderline personality, suicidal ideation, identity issues, perfectionism, and grief. 
Research shows the method is frequently a beneficial part of the treatment process. Several studies also support poetry therapy as one approach to the treatment of depression, as it has been repeatedly shown to relieve depressive symptoms, improve self-esteem and self-understanding, and encourage the articulation of feelings. Researchers have also demonstrated poetry therapy’s ability to reduce anxiety and stress in people.
Those experiencing post-traumatic stress have also reported improved mental and emotional well-being as a result of poetry therapy. Some individuals who have survived trauma or abuse may have difficulty processing the experience cognitively and, as a result, suppress associated memories and emotions.
Through poetry therapy, many are able to integrate these feelings, reframe traumatic events, and develop a more positive outlook for the future. People experiencing addiction may find poetry therapy can help them explore their feelings regarding the substance abuse, perceive drug use in a new light, and develop or strengthen coping skills.
Poetry writing may also be a way for those with substance abuse issues to express their thoughts on treatment and behavior change. Some studies have shown poetry therapy can be of benefit to people with schizophrenia despite the linguistic and emotional deficits associated with the condition. 
Poetry writing may be a helpful method of describing mental experiences and can allow therapists to better understand the thought processes of those they are treating. Poetry therapy has also helped some individuals with schizophrenia to improve social functioning skills and foster more organized thought processes. It is important to note in many instances, especially in cases of moderate to severe mental health concerns, poetry therapy is used in combination with another type of therapy, not as the sole approach to treatment.
Training for Poetry Therapists Poetry therapists receive literary as well as clinical training to enable them to be able to select literature appropriate for the healing process. While there is no university program in poetry therapy, the International Federation for Biblio-Poetry Therapy (IFBPT), the independent credentialing body for the profession, has developed specific training requirements. Several studies support poetry therapy as one approach to the treatment of depression, as it has been repeatedly shown to relieve depressive symptoms, improve self-esteem and self-understanding, and encourage the expression of feelings.
Concerns and Limitations of Poetry Therapy
In spite of its widespread appeal and broad range of application, some concerns have been raised about the use of poetry therapy. Some critics have pointed out it is possible for people to analyze a poem on a purely intellectual level, without any emotional involvement. This type of intellectualization may be more likely when complex poems are used, as a person might spend so much time trying to decipher the meaning of the poem that they lose sight of their emotions and spontaneous reactions. Poems that are unoriginal or filled with clichés are unlikely to stimulate individuals on a deep emotional level or challenge them to think in ways that promote growth. Just always keep in mind that poetry therapy may have little or no value for those individuals who simply do not enjoy poetry.
The Advertising Pitch:
Words are the Most Powerful Magic There Is
Sometimes Your Mind Has a Will of Its Own
With PEGASUS POETRY THERAPY you can
Learn How to Read Your Own Mind!
Confusion bringing you down?
Is manic depression touching your soul?
You know what you want, but you just don’t know how to get There?
Poetry therapy is what you need when the medication, the yoga, the guided meditation, the crystals, the chakra alignment and other Somatic treatments just aren’t working.
Some things only work when you let them work:
• Restore Self-Confidence
• Achieve Closure from Painful Relationship Breakups & Lost Loved Ones
• Find a More Meaningful Direction to Your Life
• Get Unstuck and Out of Your Own Way
• Overcome Fears and Anxiety
• Control panic attacks
• Change Addictive Behavior Patterns, like OCD
• Re-Write bad Scripts
Recognition > Focus > Intention > Action
There is no trick to listening to yourself and learning how choosing and rearranging your words can unlock darkened doors, de-clutter basements and clean out the attics of your life. Sometimes in merely one session.
Every Tuesday from 11:00 am until 6:30 pm at the
Inner Temple Inner Healing Center
at Eve’s Vegan Cafe 575 S. Coast Highway 101 Encinitas, CA
Contact: realpoetrytherapy@gmail.com or
Call 858 349 6429 for an appointment.
$50- 1/2 Hour $80 – 1 Hour 
EXAMPLES & ENDORSEMENTS
PEGASUS POETRY THERAPY has only recently launched its online version via FaceTime, Skype or Facebook video. 
Just add <poetry therapy> to your Skype contacts and schedule a date. Payments accepted through PayPal or Facebook cash. Here are some examples of the poetry achieved through PEGASUS POETRY THERAPY:
I.
Narcissus in a Nutshell
I’ve lost the person locked within the situation
Like a nut dwells within its hard shell of fearful anger.
Escaping vulnerability
Hiding from the unknown.
Hard shells, hard feelings, hardness itself
The excitement of living days in the present
Belonging to the past
I will not let go of what I can recall but not relive
My belonging to that which encompasses myself
Another nut within its shell.
To belong is to exist
Without belonging there is Nothing and
I fear nothing most of all because I do not know it
And I fear what I do not know more than
I would remedy the pain of this loss with trustworthy tools
When two liquids are bonded as one
A single drop of poison poisons the whole glass
And betrayal is always poison no matter how little or how much
The glass of Narcissus’s tears is now empty
He has blinded himself rather than drink his own poison.
Instead he has left me to sip the bitter poison
Of fading better days.
Like a cat
Poised in stillness
Distracted by nothing
Ready to pounce
I will not surrender the pain.
I will not surrender the pain.
Because the pain is my memory of the happiness
We’ve now lost
A sweet nut within a bitter shell.
II.
The Martyr
Last night I saw you beatify a martyr
With a magical brush of gold belief.
You were serious and determined
But your brush strokes were light caresses
On a sky blue span of canvass
As you gently coaxed another image into being.
You remind me of my mother earth
Stern in her compassion
Willing to tolerate just so much from me
Before reining in my love
With her brushes.
And where you have drawn your line
‘Be careful’, you said to me on parting
But all the care in the world could not stop
My bulb from bursting
Rendering me blind in the speeding night
But still seeing with the golden light
Of the martyr you have shown me.
III.
Snake Heart
This sadness, this hopelessness
Will not be swatted away
Nor drowned by the busy work
Of the day to day.
It persists
Even when I am submerged in my bathtub.
The warm water rising from the bottom of my lungs.
Until I lose the will to breath
And the sadness becomes anger
Rising to the very top of my horns
Of my red-hot raging exhaustion.
How good to be angry!
I used to be afraid of snakes but no longer. I am hissing from the centre of my snake-heart
As you try and step over me.
Your eyes fail to see as you tread on my tail.
On my snake heart.
On my resolution without confrontation.
Without the owning of emotion
All that’s left for us is the hissing sound of machinery.
igorgoldkind
COMING SOON! The Cure for Pandemania
Take a Deep Breath – Living With Uncertainty
A book of poetry and art, fables and philosophies aimed at the pandemic of crisis anxiety so many are facing.
In uncertain times people turn to uncertain means. This is a book of poetry and art, of fables and philosophies aimed at the pandemic of crisis anxiety so many of us are going through right now in our daily lives and in our inner spaces. We are all of us and each us in this together.
The sciences but also the arts do provide remedies. The ancient Egyptians wrote curative words on fragments of papyrus to feed their burnt ashes to the afflicted. Lacking morphine, Walt Whitman read verses to fallen soldiers on the battlefields of the first Civil War.
At their best, the right words are more than therapeutic, they can be curative. Take a Deep Breath emulates this ritual here in administering remedies for living in these times of crisis, in living with uncertainty.
Share & Disseminate This With Your Friends
Like this:
January 5, 2021 | Categories: art, beat, book launch, books, comments about poetry, death, Emptyness, epublishing, Healing, Igor Goldkind, jazz, literature, Meaning of Existence, Meditations, mental health, Mindfulness, new poetry, Paper Bag, poetry, Poetry as therapy, Poetry Therapy, Self-Therapy, sex, spoken word, story-telling, Suicide, The Inner Temple, Therapy, Uncategorized, Zen | 1 Comment