'It's healing me': exploring self and recovery through poetry narratives and project-based interventions

Individuals with cognitive communication disorders and aphasia experience changes to cognition, communication and psychological status, which can alter their identity and sense of self. Narrative approaches and project-based interventions have both been shown to positively influence renegotiation of identity and sense of self. Poetry shares many of the features of narrative approaches.

Six individuals with cognitive communication disorders and one with aphasia co-designed a 6-month poetry group that used a narrative approach to poetry and a project-based intervention to disseminate their work.

Qualitative analyses identified eight themes, including poetry is healing, didn't know I was capable of writing poetry, poetry provides clarity, poetry refills my tank, poetry provides a sense of accomplishment, learning from one another and feeding off of one another, poetry as a way to process recovery, and poetry has given me a new identity.

Qualitative findings suggest that poetry and project-based interventions have positive effects on renegotiation of identity and sense of self. Poetry supports the expression of trauma and experiences through a metaphorical lens. This helps poets to feel comfortable sharing their compositions with groupmates and disseminate them more broadly. Poetry provides a mechanism for reframing illness narratives into their new narrative identities.