Individual presentation:
• Howard F. Stein:
Applied Psychohistorical Poetry as an Instrument for Healing Group Violence
(60 min)

Abstract:

In this talk, Stein offers applied psychohistorical poetry as a different way of knowing that complements narrative scholarship.  As a form of psychohistorical data, psychohistorical poetry can help the reader or listener gain access to unconscious processes that inform what it is like to live during a certain era or a certain culture, specifically to understand the dynamics of violence that occur in it. Poetry’s inter-subjective dialogue between the unconscious of the poet and the listener/reader contributes to healing often — violently inflicted wounds of cultural — historical life. Stein will address how psychohistorical poetry facilitates healing, via a constellation of such attributes as truth-telling, bearing witness, withdrawal of projection, experiencing internal/internalized rage and pain external to oneself  via the poem, feeling fully (in contrasted with a shallow “feeling good”), feeling alive, feeling heard, resonance between poem and listener/ reader’s life experience, integration, compassion, and empathy all working together to help mend wounds created by living in a violent culture and era.  W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming” (1919) and Wilfred Owen’s World War I poetry, exemplify the therapeutic power of poetry in portraying stark, brutal historical reality of war. Stein will read and discuss several of his poems as examples of approach. He will then encourage in the “discussion” part of the session, a more interactive workshop style among participants than question/answer between presenter and group member. Specifically, what memories, experiences, feelings did the poems evoke in the participant, who might in turn be willing to share these with the group, prompting further stories.  What poems, or even a few lines, have participants written and might be willing to share with the group in an emotionally safe environment?

Keywords: applied psychohistory, bearing witness, cultural trauma, healing, poetry, projection, psychohistory, unconscious processes, war

Short Bio:

Howard F. Stein is a psychohistorian; applied, psychoanalytic, medical, and organizational anthropologist; organizational consultant, and poet. He is Professor Emeritus, Dept, of Family and Preventive Medicine, univ. of Oklahoma health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, US.  Stein is author, co-author, and editor of 33 books, 12 of which are poetry books or chapbooks. He has published over 300 papers and chapters and 400 poems.  His most recent poetry book is Standing in the Chaos (2024, IPBooks).  He is Psychohistory Poet Laureate and Poet Laureate of the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology. He has been an active IPA/IPhA member since 1978. He finds some of his greatest inspiration in classical music. He can be reached at .