Many early career clinicians enter the field having been provided a limited view of the history of mental health treatment as a whole. Further, many individuals lack tangible tools to maintain their own mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being in the face of dehumanizing processes.
On Monday, February 8th IDHA is offering a virtual workshop that examines the history of mental health treatment in the United States and the use of poetry as a therapeutic tool. Poetry provides a unique medium for proposing new ways of being in the world and framing struggle, in ways more playful and empathetic than traditional modalities. Using selective snapshots, Autistic social worker and spoken word poet Steven T. Licardi will invite clinicians to explore the legacy of mental health treatment and to critically examine the ways in which we each, individually and collectively, continue to contribute to that legacy. Throughout this examination, participants will familiarize themselves with creative writing techniques, such as erasure/blackout poetry, letter writing, list making, and the golden shovel, as a means of subverting narratives. Participants are asked to come prepared to create and to reflect.
Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.
There is a suggested $10 donation for this event, but no one will be turned away. This event is designed for a multi-stakeholder audience. The workshop is designed to bridge the mental health needs of the "clinician" and of the "client.”
Facilitator
Steven T. Licardi is a social worker, spoken word poet, actor, and performance activist working at the intersections of art and social policy. He travels domestically and internationally using the power of spoken word to create empathic dialogue around, to confront the realities of, and to assist communities in dismantling the stigma surrounding mental health and mental illness. As a child, Steven was diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum, an experience that has deeply informed his professional work. Since 2016, his ever-evolving performance series "Coup de Mot" has been confronting how mental illnesses manifest out of oppressive social pathologies, with versions appearing in Vigo, Spain in 2016, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 2018, and in Thessoliniki, Greece in 2019. His most recent collection of poems, ‘a billion burning dreams’ (STL, 2018) traces his own mental health journey from patient to professional. www.thesvenbo.com
Exquisite Corpse poem that was composed in the Chat during the event:
You exist
dear chosen, be anything....
perhaps
along with me
no matter what it looks like
An affair I have
In your prismed silence
Different, calmness
Bring me the warmth in my belly
I never thought before
My buzzing eyes ears nose life
Be hungry . . . beyond food.
we find you wild
Distracting like a fearscape
sleeplessness my friend
you are here and smiling
lost minds
We can wander
lost minutes
navigate the world where the branches always reach out to meet you
dear destiny:
missed connections
uncertainty can mean distress, but also endless possibilities
Remember to Love Yourself first. then you can bring the Love to others, too!