Narrativising Mental Health: Analysing the Therapeutic Potential of Florence Welch's Useless Magic

Abstract: In recent years, poetry has been successfully used as a therapeutic tool by multiple theorists, evident from journals like The Journal of Poetry Therapy, while other studies have shown that accessibility and performance play a significant role in enabling effective emotional regulation and processing. This chapter looks at the literary work of Florence Welch, Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry. Being a popular figure in the music industry, Welch’s poetry is not only popular but also taps into relevant issues faced by the youth. Her songs narrativise the tensions involved in navigating grief, trauma, fame and a life that demands her to perform them. In doing so, Welch provides her fans with access to a rhetoric that enables the articulation of complex struggles and emotions, even without naming them. The collection allows us to recognise the recurring themes of trauma, identity and mental health, as well as how they are accessed and articulated. Through an analysis of the text and the discourses surrounding it, this chapter explores poetry’s therapeutic potential, not just as a practical tool but as a literary form. Going beyond the idea of poetry as an outlet for spontaneous emotions, I unpack how the very process of articulating them becomes therapeutic, both in their production and in their consumption. Drawing from arts-based therapy in my analyses, I explore how the narrativization of mental health struggles in popular poetry proves to be a transaction in articulation through which the creator feels heard and the audience seen.

Keywords: mental health, therapy, popular poetry, poetry therapy, youth