In the context of the XII Portuguese Congress of Sociology that will take place from April 4 to 7 in Coimbra, a communication by M. Faustini & T. P. Marques will be presented on April 5th, at 4.15 p.m. Since the 1960s, the phenomenon of creative writing workshops has experienced a great expansion in a global sense and new audiences to refer to, which have profoundly changed its methodology in a collaborative sense - especially in the mental health field - and, consequently, their purposes. To the writing and reading poetry, in particular, have been progressively attributed therapeutic properties linked to the communicative and expressive abilities of poetic language. If this has favored its diffusion in the context of health services, on the other hand, it has reduced its objectives, presenting the healing as the only logical purpose of recreational and artistic activities in the institutional domain.
This intervention aims to use poetry and the collaborative activities of creative writing workshops as a tool for the critical understanding of emotions and the diagnosis of mood disorders, from the perspective of militant mental health associations. Through the methodology of poetic inquiry, poems generated in the dialogue established between the principal investigator and the participating co-researchers, based on notes, field observations and collaborative exercises shared throughout the sessions in which the laboratory activity is composed, will be presented.
