„…we do not feel at home
in our interpretations of the world”
(Rainer Maria Rilke: Duino Elegies, 1st elegie, trans. Martyn Crucefix)
Life is a constant search for belonging and meaning. Biblio/poetry therapy offers safe places for supportive, helping relationships and communities, encounters and self-reflections where people have the opportunity to tackle their own subject matters. In recent years, during the most hopeless times of the pandemic and war – as Rilke says in his 1st Duino Elegie – people felt insecure and didn’t know where to turn for help in searching for belonging and meaning. Because of these collective crises, people have become more focused on big existential issues that make people aware of their own existence and encourage them to clarify their relationship to fundamental questions and values leading to a personal change and a more authentic life. In recent times, crises and challenges facing our world and our daily lives have made various forms of therapeutic and mental health support methods more popular, including art therapies. Specifically, biblio/poetry therapy is more in demand than ever.
In Europe, the first association for biblio/poetry therapy was founded in 1981 in Finland. Since then, an organisational, training and service framework for biblio/poetry therapy has been and is being developed in many other countries. Some Hungarian, Finnish, British, Italian, Lithuanian, Croatian and Slovakian colleagues have been in contact for years. They have joint projects, training courses, and some of them meet at various professional events online and offline. But never before have they come together on a larger scale to meet face-to-face and learn more about the work of colleagues (associations and/or independent practitioners) from other countries, to exchange experiences and to join forces in the hope of developing future joint projects, research and training standards.
In two days, the international conference aims to provide the space and time for encounters and exchange, in the hope of creating a tradition and encouraging other European colleagues to organize similar professional events in the future.
I am the partner of the conference and will have a lecture as a representative of the Czech Republic on 4th of the October 2024. You can download the program of the conference here.
