Therapist Uses Poetry to Help Foster Healing

If ever a man fit his name, it is Arthur Lerner. He has two doctorates, four master’s degrees and a bachelor’s degree.

But Lerner, 77, says the most important thing he learned while growing up as an orphan in Chicago was that people say one thing, mean another, and then do something with no relationship to either. And that’s what he says led him to the world of poetry.

He had his first poem published when he was 7.

“I had to live up to something even at that age,” he said. “I expected every poem to be accepted.”

Lerner’s love of poetry has led him down an unusual path. He is a poetry therapist. By leading patients in poetry writing workshops, he fosters healing. Lerner, who has lectured and conducted poetry therapy workshops throughout the country, sees patients at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Marina del Rey and volunteers his services at the Hollywood Senior Citizen Multipurpose Center.

He also has taught kindergarten through college and is professor emeritus at Los Angeles City College. He has written four books and hundreds of published articles and poems.

A conversation with him rarely gets too far without the world of literature being sprinkled in.

“We don’t always understand other’s feelings; we don’t always understand ourselves,” he says. “It’s like what poet Marianne Moore wrote: ‘All are naked, none is safe.’ Even the experts are wrong. The most important thing is to trust ourselves and live with our own doubts at the same time.”

Lerner doesn’t like to talk about himself, but he hasn’t had an easy time of late--five major surgeries in the last six years, for example. He refuses to dwell on it, though.

“I learned to accept many things,” he says. “I also learned that I didn’t have to go to pieces over terrible things.” And that’s the end of it.

Lerner came to California in the 1940s as part of the military and stayed. He earned his first Ph.D. in psychology from USC, then returned for one in literature. At USC he met Dr. Julius Griffin, who invited him to be poet-in-residence--not at some ivy-walled sanctuary of intellectualism but at Griffin’s Woodview-Calabasas Hospital, a psychiatric facility.

“I remember one patient who couldn’t read without breaking down,” Lerner says. “The group kept saying, ‘Louder, louder,’ and then one patient said, ‘I hear the little girl in you when you read poetry,’ and she stopped crying and opened up.

“Poetry doesn’t cure anything,” he says. “It helps loosen up large chunks of feelings and encourages writing.”

Lerner says his secret for maintaining his sanity is having a great wife, Matilda, and realizing a long time ago that he didn’t have to be No. 1 to enjoy life.

“People used to ask me, ‘Don’t you want to move up?’ and I said, ‘I am up,’ ” he says.

In addition to his poetry workshops, he continues to write. His latest book, “Life Guidance Through Literature” (co-written with Ursula Mahlendorf), uses the work of great writers to help people through life crises.

Lerner ends each poetry therapy session with the words of W. H. Auden: “In the deserts of the heart/Let the healing fountain start.”

Bulletin Board

Senior Club--The Over the Hill Gang, a group of skiers 50 and older, will hold its monthly dinner meeting; Reuben’s restaurant, 6531 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles; 5 p.m. today; information: (818) 244-2631.

Discussion Group--The West Hollywood Senior Center will begin a Hebrew discussion group on current issues; Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; 10 a.m. Wednesdays; for costs and information: (213) 851-8202.

Medicare Assistance--The Medicare Advocacy Project provides free education, counseling and legal services for Medicare beneficiaries and their families; for information about volunteer counselors or a list of public presentations, call (213) 614-0991.