Need Help?
Email or Call: 1-800-577-4762
Email or Call: 1-800-577-4762
Sign up for our
NEWSLETTER
NEWSLETTER
Need Help?
CONTACT US
CONTACT US
Words Against the Void: Poems by an Existential Psychologist
Filed Under: Existential-Humanistic
In This Article…
PSYCHOTHERAPY.NET MEMBERSHIPS
Get Endless Inspiration and
Insight from Master Therapists,
Members-Only Content & More
EMPIRICALLY VALIDATED PSYCHOTHERAPY
What works in psychotherapy?That's far beyond the likes of me.
I've only practiced fifty years,
and still am plagued by doubts and fears.
I muddle on and try my best
to aid my clients in their quest
for ways of being more alive,
somehow in spite of all to thrive.
I wish I knew the right technique
to give them more of what they seek.
The mystery of change persists
unsolved by dogged scientists.
I hope that they will soon impart
quick ways to heal a broken heart.
My efforts stagger, balk, and lurch
unguided by precise research
to tell me how to ease life's pains,
and thus flawed intuition reigns.
Pray science soon will guarantee
sure cures for human misery,
but meanwhile I'll do what I can
without a validated plan.
Blindly driven? Wisely driving? Who's the rider? Who's the horse?
somehow in spite of all to thrive.
I wish I knew the right technique
to give them more of what they seek.
The mystery of change persists
unsolved by dogged scientists.
I hope that they will soon impart
quick ways to heal a broken heart.
My efforts stagger, balk, and lurch
unguided by precise research
to tell me how to ease life's pains,
and thus flawed intuition reigns.
Pray science soon will guarantee
sure cures for human misery,
but meanwhile I'll do what I can
without a validated plan.
FREEDOM vs. DETERMINISM
Just reacting? Freely striving?Blindly driven? Wisely driving? Who's the rider? Who's the horse?
Who's in charge? Who charts the course?
Sort your data, choose your theory,
Argue concepts 'til you're weary.
Psychologize until you die—
While we argue, life goes by.
will be spent, one way or another,
worrying about your worth as a person.
Why don't you just make something up,
and right off the bat
be done with the whole problem?
There must be better things to do
Psychologize until you die—
While we argue, life goes by.
ALTERNATIVE
Most of your waking lifewill be spent, one way or another,
worrying about your worth as a person.
Why don't you just make something up,
and right off the bat
be done with the whole problem?
There must be better things to do
than fret about your relative merit
in the universe.
You could, for example,
blow clouds around the sky
to the delight of small children.
in the universe.
You could, for example,
blow clouds around the sky
to the delight of small children.
DECADE OF THE DREAM
The recent Decade of the BrainI found was much too great a strain.
It burned mine out, and I am left
quite mindless and of hope bereft.
Now comes the Decade of the Gene,
a slogan that I find obscene.
I wish there were some persons still
who'd help me my frail dreams fulfill.
We need a Decade of the Dream
in which bright rays of hope would beam
down on our sordid human plight
and fill us with some healing light
SISYPHUS REDUX
This rock, this mountain, this man,this futile perseverance—
what use is such a myth?
Sisyphus gets nowhere,
gravity always wins.
Go ahead, if you wish—
imagine him happy
with or without anti-depressants.
You might as well imagine
the rock is ecstatic
bouncing down the slope, defiant.
So is this struggle any use to us?
We are in it, and outside it.
We view it, and have attitudes.
We are not rocks, not mountains,
not sure we are Sisyphus.
We read the story,
see him sweat,
dodge the rock,
respect the mountain,
climb up to stand on Sisyphus's shoulders
and peer beyond, beyond.
You can read more of Tom's poems in his book, Words Against the Void: Poems by an Existential Psychologist
, available at Amazon.com.Copyright © 2008 Universities of the Rockies Press.
Tom Greening has been in private practice since 1958 and completed 35 years of editing the Journal of Humanistic Psychology in 2005. He is a professor at Saybrook Graduate School and a clinical professor at UCLA. He writes serious and comical poems, but can't always tell which are which. Although he purports to be a self-actualized existential-humanistic psychologist, he is neurotically involved with a long-haired dachshund. His website is at: www.tom.greening.com.
Tom Greening was compensated for his/her/their contribution. None of his/her/their books or additional offerings are required for any of the Psychotherapy.net content. Should such materials be references, it is as an additional resource.
Psychotherapy.net defines ineligible companies as those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no minimum financial threshold; individuals must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies. We ask that all contributors disclose any and all financial relationships they have with any ineligible companies whether the individual views them as relevant to the education or not.
Additionally, there is no commercial support for this activity. None of the planners or any employee at Psychotherapy.net who has worked on this educational activity has relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies.