Terapias Expresivas y Creativas · 1999
RES Model of Poetry Therapy
Poetic experience can promote therapeutic change through receiving evocative language, creating one’s own language and transforming experience through symbols, metaphors, stories and rituals.
Nicholas F. Mazza’s RES Model of Poetry Therapy is a multidimensional framework for organising the therapeutic use of poetry and other language arts into three complementary components: Receptive/Prescriptive (R/P), based on introducing poems, stories, song lyrics or other pre-existing literature; Expressive/Creative (E/C), centred on the client’s production through poetry, free or structured writing, journals, letters, autobiography and narratives; and Symbolic/Ceremonial (S/C), based on metaphors, symbols, storytelling, rituals, ceremonies, performance and other symbolic forms. Mazza conceives poetry therapy broadly as the use of language arts for therapeutic purposes and presents RES as an integrative framework compatible with different psychological orientations and with individual, couple, family, group and community modalities. Change can occur through identification and universalisation, validation, externalisation, emotional expression and organisation, narrative construction, discovery of meaning, restructuring perspectives, interpersonal communication, group cohesion, empowerment and symbolic acts that facilitate transitions or closure. The poem is not treated primarily as an object of literary analysis: priority is given to the meaning it acquires for the person. Material selection, the timing of its introduction, suitability for the client, cultural context and clinical purpose are essential variables, so the model does not prescribe the indiscriminate use of literature or writing. Available research supports the descriptive usefulness of the RES structure, and there is favourable evidence for poetry therapy as a whole, although the empirical basis specific to the model remains comparatively limited and heterogeneous.
Theory of change
Change occurs by using received language, created language and symbolic action to evoke and validate experience, externalise it, organise it into communicable forms, construct new meanings and turn those meanings into new personal, relational or behavioural positions.
Core ideas
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Poetry therapy is broader than writing poems
Mazza defines poetry therapy as the therapeutic use of language arts and includes pre-existing poems, bibliotherapy, narrative, journals, letters, storytelling, metaphors and rituals. The RES Model organises this breadth into three classes of operations without reducing the field to a single technique. (Mazza, 2003, Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice).
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RES classifies therapeutic operations, not compulsory phases
Receptive/Prescriptive, Expressive/Creative and Symbolic/Ceremonial describe different ways of working with language and symbol that may be used separately or combined. The model does not establish that every treatment must progress sequentially from R to E and finally to S. (Mazza, 2003; Mazza & Hayton, 2013).
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The clinical priority is the person, not the correct interpretation of the poem
The value of a work lies in what it evokes for the client. Therapy does not require discovery of the poet’s true intention, and a subjective response that diverges from literary analysis may be precisely the relevant therapeutic material. (Mazza, 2003, Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice).
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An external text can provide distance for talking about oneself
The client may begin by commenting on feelings, decisions or relationships in a poem and gradually discover that they are speaking about their own experiences. Literary material thus functions as an interpersonal and projective vehicle that can facilitate disclosure without requiring immediate direct exposure. (Mazza, 2001; Mazza, 2003).
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Identification and universalisation reduce isolation
Recognising oneself in another’s words can validate experiences that seemed difficult to communicate and show that other people have gone through related emotions. Literature can generate an experience of symbolic companionship without erasing the client’s uniqueness. (Mazza, 2003, Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice).
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The material must fit the client’s state and context
The choice of poetry is not neutral: tone, content, culture, timing and possible interpretations can help or harm the process. Mazza emphasises timing, appropriateness and clinical purpose and notes particular cautions concerning potentially hopeless or invalidating material. (Mazza, 2003, Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice).
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Writing transforms experience by giving it form
The E/C component makes it possible to externalise thoughts, emotions, memories and relationships and turn them into a linguistic object that can be reread, organised and modified. This capacity for representation and revision distinguishes therapeutic writing from unarticulated internal experience. (Connolly Baker & Mazza, 2004, The Healing Power of Writing).
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Simply discharging thoughts in writing does not guarantee benefit
The literature reviewed by Baker and Mazza cautions that disorganised and repetitive writing may be unhelpful and may even temporarily worsen distress. Benefits are more plausibly related to processes such as connecting details and emotions, organising narratives, reflecting and constructing understanding. (Connolly Baker & Mazza, 2004, The Healing Power of Writing).
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Structure can free expression
Stems, acrostics, clustering and other pre-structured prompts reduce the demand to produce a work spontaneously and provide a concrete starting point. Formal constraint can increase rather than reduce psychological freedom when the blank page produces a block. (Mazza, 2001; Mazza, 2003).
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Metaphor connects internal experience and external reality
Representing a situation through an image such as a journey, race, suit of armour or storm makes it possible to examine emotions, actions and beliefs from a different structure. Metaphor can simultaneously maintain contact with and distance from the problem and generate possibilities for transformation. (Mazza, 2003, Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice).
Influences
- Jack J. Leedy’s Poetry Therapy
- Arthur Lerner’s Poetry Therapy
- Bibliotherapy
- Interactive Bibliotherapy
- Psychoanalysis
- Carl Jung’s analytical psychology
- Alfred Adler’s individual psychology
- Gestalt Therapy
- Psychodrama
- Humanistic psychology
- Narrative therapy
- Constructivism
- Systemic family therapy
- Strategic therapy
- Structural family therapy
- Intergenerational therapy
- James Pennebaker’s expressive writing
- Journal Therapy
- Autobiographical narrative
Key references
- Mazza, N. (1996). Poetry Therapy: A Framework and Synthesis of Techniques for Family Social Work. Journal of Family Social Work, 1(3), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1300/J039v01n03_02
- Mazza, N. (1999). Poetry Therapy: Interface of the Arts and Psychology. CRC Press.
- Mazza, N. (2001). The Place of the Poetic in Dealing with Death and Loss. Journal of Poetry Therapy, 15(1), 29–35.
- Mazza, N. (2003). Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
- Connolly Baker, K., & Mazza, N. (2004). The Healing Power of Writing: Applying the Expressive/Creative Component of Poetry Therapy. Journal of Poetry Therapy, 17(3), 141–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/08893670412331311352
- Olson-McBride, L., & Page, T. F. (2012). Song to Self: Promoting a Therapeutic Dialogue with High-Risk Youths Through Poetry and Popular Music. Social Work with Groups, 35(2), 124–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/01609513.2011.603117
- Mazza, N. F., & Hayton, C. J. (2013). Poetry Therapy: An Investigation of a Multidimensional Clinical Model. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 40(1), 53–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2012.10.002
- Rodríguez-Rodríguez, D. (2025). La terapia de poesía como tratamiento psicológico: Un metaanálisis. Revista de Psicoterapia, 36(131), 85–92. https://doi.org/10.5944/rdp.v36i131.39863