Of Heart and Mind

In his new book, Of Heart and Mind: A Psychiatrist’s Poems, retired physician, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst Dr. Peter Alan Olsson shares the poetry that made his difficult career meaningful. He notes, “My personal use of poetry, or prose writing, helped me manage soul-sadness by discharging, soothing, containing or sublimating the realities of my work life in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. At a personal level, I often feel that my poems write me in an almost mystical sense. They help me heal my pain, celebrate my artistic gift and express my feelings.” As he writes in his poem “My Lovely Dream Dancer”: In the delicious, relaxed, loving domain before dawn, we touch like two dream dancers reluctant to awaken ... and the music of our love is too sweet to interrupt. The grasping demands of the day loom like mine fields, but become bearable because we will dance again tonight.