More Metaphorical (Meta)fun

One of the nice things about metaphors is that they can release one from whatever is a bother or an annoyance, or just mundane, and allow the mind to float away into abstraction. I think about people who are trapped, for whatever reason, in mind-numbing routines of different kinds; some people who are seriously obsessive-compulsive, for example, might have to wash their hands dozens if not hundreds of times a day. They may have to check certain things before they leave a room, make sure certain objects are placed certain ways before they can do anything else.....I wonder what therapeutic value poetry might provide in such instances (and even lesser cases). A poem is like an emotional burst of description-narration-perception, and the opportunity for leaving compulsions behind is large (I think). To just look out a window and begin comparing concrete things seen to those not seen but imagined....an irrational, nonsensical opportunity to play with perception could be a welcome distraction maybe, or even a release of all the pent-up anxiety an obsessive-compulsive person is constantly trying to assuage.