On the way to Albuquerque for a holiday with my parents, I bought a used audio version of Nicholas Sparks’s “The Notebook” at a truck stop outside Flagstaff, Ariz. Told mostly in flashback, the sentimental 1940s love story was diverting enough to get me through six hours of desert highway. However, it was the present-day narrative centering on a character with dementia that helped me take the first steps toward recognizing my father’s unusual anxiety, irritability and confusion as possible signs of something much larger. Read Full Article

Welcome to the Well Book List! To make this list, a book needed to appear on Well during 2021. While we’ve cited a number of books in Well stories this year, we’ve narrowed our list down to eight of our favorites, covering a variety of topics including behavior change, parenting, anxiety and poetry. Browse the list, pick a few to give to others and don’t forget to give yourself the gift of healthy reading this holiday season. Enjoy! Read Full Article

While we herald vaccines as potential saviors from the threat of a devastating virus, Dr. Rosenthal said, “Poetry can serve as a vaccine for the soul.” In a world that is so marred by loss and deprived of pleasure, he believes poetry can help fill in the gaps, offering a brief retreat from a troubled world and hope for a better future…. Read Full Article

Indeed, there is empirical evidence that supports the emotional effects of poetry on the brain. Neuroscientist Eugen Wassiliwizky and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt have found that listening to recited poetry can elicit strong emotional responses, including chills and objectively-measured goosebumps, by activating the brain’s reward circuitry… Read Full Article

As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Norman Rosenthal. Dr. Rosenthal is best known as the psychiatrist who first described seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and pioneered the use of light therapy in its treatment while at the National Institute of Mental Health. He is the author of hundreds of professional articles and ten books for the general public including the New York Times bestseller Transcendence and most recently Poetry Rx: How 50 Inspiring Poems Can Heal and Bring Joy to Your Life… Read Full Article

How Poetry Can Heal

As a psychiatrist in private practice in Washington, D.C., Norman Rosenthal is used to helping clients through loss. But just like many of us, he struggled to find the right words to console a bereaved friend who called him late one-night several years ago. … Read Full Article

A prescription for … poetry? This doctor recommends it

Just like there are often no words to describe crazy experiences, when it comes to health, there are also times when there are no treatments or answers. Luckily, there is always poetry — and while that may not sound like much, it’s become a saving grace for many patients and doctors.

From a psychiatrist who often uses poetry in his practice, to an internist who has been battling COVID-19 in hospitals — there are doctors in many fields who have found solace for themselves as well as their patients through poetry. … Read Full Article

What a poem and an Eagles game may have in common, and a psychiatrist’s unusual prescription in the time of COVID-19

After psychiatrist and author Norman E. Rosenthal moved from his native Johannesburg to New York to begin a residency in 1976, he was shocked by the literal night-and-day differences between the two cities… Read Full Article

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month and a leading psychiatrist has just published a groundbreaking book filled with powerful poetic prescriptions to help strengthen mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Dr. Norman Rosenthal, a psychiatrist from Rockville, Maryland, who pioneered the use of light therapy for seasonal affective disorder, wrote Poetry Rx: How 50 Inspiring Poems Can Heal and Bring Joy to Your Life to raise awareness of the healing power of poetry. … Read Full Article

The world seems to be reeling from one crisis to another. We’ve experienced a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, political and social turmoil. Then there are personal traumas that people are dealing with, such as the loss of a loved one, health issues, unemployment, divorce or the loss of a job… Read Full Article

One doesn’t need Good News Network to tell them there are a lot of people whose minds and moods have been darkened by the last 14 months.

The mental health crisis that many immediately saw as a great threat from government-enforced business closures, quarantines, and travel restrictions was a very real thing before COVID-19, and as a report from global medical care knowledge provider BMJ states, 2018 saw over 70 million prescriptions for antidepressants written in the U.S., compared to just 36 million ten years before… Read Full Article

Poetry Rx Listed in Poets.org’s National Poetry Month

World-renowned psychiatrist shares the healing power of poetry in Prairie Lights event

Norm Rosenthal on Poetry: Comfort and Connection in Rhythmic Form