Although, in the early1900's, librarians had a system of selecting and using books helpful to psychiatric patients, it wasn't until much later that the concept began to catch on and be more mainstream.
             In the 1950's, Eli Greifer, a poet/pharmacist began a "poemtherapy" group at Creedmore State Hospital in New York City and in1959 at Cumberland Hospital in Brooklyn. Psychiatrists Dr. Jack J. Leedy assisted in the process and published the first definitive book on poetry therapy in 1969, Poetry Therapy, which includes essays by
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             many pioneers in the field. About this time, more and more people in the helping professions began to integrate poetry into their work. Among them was Arthur Lerner,
             Ph.D. of Los Angeles, who founded the Poetry Therapy Institute in the 1970's, and in 1976 published Poetry in the Therapeutic
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