Poetry therapy is an arts-based therapy that has the potential to be applied to any population if the facilitator is motivated to work closely and compassionately with people of various backgrounds. Therapeutic poetry workshops were conducted with adults with disabilities and previously incarcerated men over the course of several months. Each workshop was analyzed for successes and areas for improvement, and adaptations were made between consecutive workshops. After the completion of all the workshops, recommendations were provided for working with each population and for applying poetry therapy successfully. Finally, the application of poetry therapy to healthcare, specifically nursing, was addressed as a way to use the knowledge gained from this project to lessen the emotional burden of being a patient and being a healthcare provider.

The purpose of this action research study was to help medical students normalize feelings of shame related to academics and to respond to these feelings in more adaptive ways. Several cycles of research informed this study, which investigated the influence of an educational innovation. The innovation focused on helping medical students understand feelings of shame, foster self-efficacy in shame resiliency practices, and encourage help-seeking behaviors. In short, the study sought to understand how these medical students responded to feelings of shame related to academic performance before and after participation in the educational innovation. A total of 14 second-year medical students participated in this concurrent mixed-method study. The educational innovation was designed by this action researcher and informed by Brené Brown’s shame resilience theory. Three sources of data were used to answer the research questions, including a pre- and post-innovation survey, interviews, and student journals. Major findings suggested that the educational innovation was effective in enhancing the study participants’ knowledge of shame, increasing perceptions of self-efficacy in the practices related to resiliency to feeling of academic shame, as well as, promoting help-seeking behaviors. The data also revealed a range of academic shame triggers identified by these medical students. This action research study validated the need to normalize feelings of shame and support medical students developing practices for resiliency to this powerful feeling.