Using Poetry for Depression Relief: A Therapeutic Approach

There are many different ways to help treat depression and expressing yourself, whether through writing or talking or drawing, is an excellent form of therapy. When you write or talk or draw you are releasing all the emotions, thoughts and/or worries that are plaguing you at that time. Those suffering from depression know how important it is to get those things out.

Things You'll Need

• Pen or Pencil
• Paper
• Motivation
• Emotions

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Instructions

• 1

  Find a quiet place where there will be no interruptions or distractions. As energy is low when you are depressed you'll want to focus all of it on writing and need that quiet space.

• 2

  Start writing. This may seem like an easy step but it's not. When you think about what you are feeling it may be hard to express that in words. If you have problems, start by making a list of the emotions you are feeling and then go from there.

• 3

  Ignore structure or rules of poetry. While this may seem like an odd thing to say as you are writing poetry, these things you can work on after you've written down what you feel.

• 4

  Edit your poem. If you wish to create a formal poem, this is where you would check the structure, pauses, flow and consistency with style (i.e rhyming). However, this is not a requirement to writing poems. Many poems are free-style and do not follow all the rules of poetry. Write what you feel - the rest will follow.