Disassociating from Dissociation

Has been in private practice as a psychotherapist since 1976. He currently practises in Ridgewood, New Jersey. In 2012, Marshall retired as Professor Emeritus of Psychology after teaching for forty years at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Marshall wanted to add the following statement. “Poetry somehow enables us to miraculously express the ineffable experience of being human. It is this access to that human experience that has drawn me to poetry. Sigmund Freud once said, ‘Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me'. I have been fascinated with the connection between poetry and therapy for about twenty-five years. I find it enables me to enhance the development of the therapeutic alliance because it helps to place me directly within the patient's experience, especially the unconscious attributes which are so difficult and challenging to articulate. Additionally, my poetry allows me to express the therapist's experience of working with the patient. The melding of patient and therapist, I feel, is extremely important for the treatment to succeed.” Email: