Therapeutic Words
I recently went on a Creative Writing workshop. The day was intended for therapists to explore the potential of creative writing tools for use with clients. The session was attended by a variety of therapists, counsellors and other health professionals.
The course was mostly experiential and it soon became obvious that we were as interested in our own development as in the tools that were used. We had fallen under the spell of the Therapeutic Words group energy.
One of the last exercises was to respond to a poem by Brian Patten – The Right Mask. (You can read the poem online, simply google the title, or better still buy one of his books – Selected Poems ISBN: 9780141027135). In the poem there is a dialogue between a poem and the poet. The poem was read aloud twice and then the exercise introduced.
The Right Mask
(inspired by the poem of the same name by Brian Patten)
How can I be honest with myself?
Every time I respond to anything
A question, a comment on TV, even a thought
I quietly, surreptitiously and subconsciously slip on a mask
Only as I remove the mask, which I sometimes wear, unknown, for hours, do I look at it
And say, “Is this me – what I think – what I would say?"
I’ve been putting on and taking off masks for so long
That never (or perhaps as a baby – once long ago)
Have I been able to look in the mirror and see the mask
That is no mask
About 10 years ago I caught a glimpse of it
The Right Mask, in a puddle in Scotland
Sometimes now, when I’m singing in the shower
I realise a mask, the wrong mask, has been washed away
But it’s generally re-grown by the time I look in the mirror again
I console myself with the happy knowledge
That at times the right mask sits comfortably
And I am so comfortable with it that I notice it more and more
Even if I can’t see it in the mirror yet
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