The Radical Therapist The Radical Therapist #139 – Poetics, Politics, and the Art of Therapy w/ Todd Disney, Psy.D.
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Nov 17, 2025 
In this conversation, Todd Disney, Psy.D., a narrative therapist and educator, shares his innovative approach to integrating poetics into therapy. He explores how language can disrupt ordinary narratives and evoke deeper client experiences. Todd emphasizes the ethical responsibility of therapists to listen and engage with clients' poetic expressions, moving away from traditional, therapist-centered methods. He also discusses the risks of aestheticizing suffering, highlighting the importance of honoring lived experiences while inviting poetic resonance.
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Poetics As Word-Art
- Poetics names a way of using language that evokes the knowable-unknown and draws attention to the immediate lived moment.
- Todd Disney defines it as word-art that creates resonance without fully explaining experience.
Epston Video Sparked a Shift
- Todd watched David Epston's anorexia video where an evocative question shifted the client's relation to her life.
- He realized the poetic effect came more from the client's lived experience than from the therapist's crafted question.
Everyday Language Is Political
- Language and everyday life are political because discourse shapes how people perform time, value, and identity.
- Poetics can disrupt reproduced neoliberal meanings and open small sites of creation and resistance.
