The fear of poetry or metrophobia is common even if many people do not recognize it. Many people first develop this phobia in school when enthusiastic teachers encourage them to classify poems on artificial scales, decompose them, and search for esoteric meanings. Others simply feel that poetry is somehow “beyond” them, belonging only to the realm of the pretentious and highly educated.
Index
Causes
Metrophobia can take several forms. Some people fear all poetry, while others fear poems that deal with specific topics or that are written in a specific style. If poetry was something that stressed you out in elementary school, then as an adult in college, any contact with poetry or poetic readings can cause panic and anxiety .
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Symptoms
You may refuse to participate in reading aloud or even start skipping class. You may feel uncomfortable when your friends forward you emails that contain poems. You may be reluctant to read unfamiliar books for fear of coming across an illustrative poem.
A quick fix for this is to avoid taking courses with a heavy poetry component. All colleges offer course descriptions in the class catalog; Please read them carefully before signing up.
Other places where a metrophobic person can come into contact with poetry are books, greeting cards, or when helping your children with their homework. If panic constantly arises in these situations, you probably need to seek treatment for metrophobia.
Treatment of the fear of poetry
Who could forget the opening scenes of the movie Dead Poets Society, in which Professor John Keating leads his class by tearing the pages out of his textbook of poetry dealing with the numerical classification of written works?
The liberation from removing the focus on “expert opinion” and narrow definitions of greatness, allowing creative work to be enjoyed for its own sake, becomes a hallmark of the film. Many of the students re-found the title society, learning to love and be inspired by poetry of all kinds.
For many people who suffer from metrophobia, this is all that is needed. Therapy can largely focus on eliminating negative thoughts and beliefs experienced by suffering people, helping them realize that poetry transcends meter and verse.
Helping the patient to recognize the creative freedom that poetry provides both the creator and the reader is one of the main goals of metrophobia therapy. You may not become a lover of poetry, but you can learn not to fear it. A good therapist will work with you to develop the best treatment plan for you.
Hello, how are you? My name is Georgia Tarrant, and I am a clinical psychologist. In everyday life, professional obligations seem to predominate over our personal life. It's as if work takes up more and more of the time we'd love to devote to our love life, our family, or even a moment of leisure.