Poetic Poiesis and Cultural Therapy

Abstract

Psychohistoriographic cultural therapy (PCT) is a systematized cultural therapy antidote against intergenerational effects of mental enslavement by European colonialism. The sociodrama Madnificent Irations created in the Jamaican Mental Hospital provided a PCT blueprint for the psychosocial process of decolonization. Characterized by poesis—the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before, the components of this creative production are the dialectic historical analysis of oral histories to catalyze the synthesis of poetry making and dramaturgic activity—the process of cultural poesis. The operational components of psychohistoriographic cultural therapy consist of the five-stage elements of circling, centring, culturing, cognitive catalysis, and capacity building. Based on the syncretic synergy of mindfulness, dialogic cultural circles, group ethnography, art to define values and mission, embodied cognition and collective poetry making the process generate new cultural creations that debunks myths, stimulates insight, and engages the creative imagination.