Journal October 2026 Special DISPUK Release_Full Version - Flipbook - Page 65
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There Are Boxes All Around Us
Perhaps there is an even greater need for a poetic mindset and practice in our
time because we might be in the process of losing the resonant, uncontrollable,
and vibrating in our efficient, optimized, and accelerated society13.
As a human being, psychologist, and narrative practitioner, I wonder how the arts
can be a way to inquire and explore everyday life. A way to help us think and act
outside of the boxes, and a way to expand our horizons and the richness in our
stories, words, and experiences. There are boxes all around us. We create them.
Society creates them, and their purpose is to separate, categorize, limit, and
define. I often meet people in my practice when they experience that various
boxes restrict their possibilities in life and their freedom and flexibility to move
around and toward a meaningful life.
The woman who yells in the beginning of this article points towards the narrowing
boxes and limits she is put in again and again. Boxes about controlling anger,
talking in calm ways, behaving as the rules prescribe, accepting the diagnoses,
and, and, and&
Perhaps poetry and poeticization can rescue—not only the words from the saying
of them—but also the messier and fumbling descriptions of life so we do not get
trapped in our own (and others9) words and stories about us and life. If we make
space for more complexity and nuances in our stories, maybe we can move more
flexibly and freely to and from the limitations and possibilities we meet in life?
