“Pomegranate Therapy”

By Esther Israel

In the fall of 2025, I had the serendipitous occasion of combining my love of food with the work that I do as a talk therapist. After the Jewish New Year, when symbolic foods are eaten, I brought leftover pomegranate arils as a snack to work at a residential treatment facility for adolescents struggling with mental health and substance abuse. A teenager asked me for some of what looked like sparkling rubies. It was love at first bite. The student kept asking and begging me for more pomegranates so I decided to bring a whole one for them to figure out how to peel, without a knife, during individual therapy.

Pomegranates turn out to be pretty amazing fidgets and help with some Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms. They are hands on teaching tools for working around disappointment after opening one up and discovering some arils went bad internally. This happens in life. Pomegranates are messy to seed, so I encouraged the kids to prepare for this, react with amusement when the pomegranate juice sprayed in expected and unexpected places, attend to our shared office space and clean up after themselves.

Then I thought about bringing pomegranates to family therapy and have the student and family members in attendance peel it during the session. Everyone was ecstatic to engage with each other and simultaneously peel a pomegranate of their own. Putting families in a good mood makes discussions of difficult topics much easier and helps reduce anxiety all around.

Then I thought about bringing pomegranates to group therapy and giving each student a pomegranate to peel and eat while focusing on self-soothe, the different senses and learning from others. This too created a relaxed atmosphere where students were receptive to learning. Word got out and I became a popular and sought after therapist. I used the students’ intrigue to teach the interpersonal effectiveness Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skill of DEARMAN - an acronym, so they would request a pomegranate from me in person or through the treatment team in writing. I got the students to Describe their request for a pomegranate, Express their feelings and opinions about getting a pomegranate, Assert themselves by repeating their request or asking for a pomegranate in a different way, Reinforce and articulate how the treatment community would benefit from my giving them a pomegranate, be Mindful of their request for a pomegranate for themselves and stick to the topic, Act confident in words and body language and Negotiate with me to get a pomegranate. When this was a conversation in group therapy, I provided feedback to the students on their DEARMANs. We learned how to make reasonable requests (just ask for one pomegranate), tap into current positive emotions (don’t pressure people with the past or negativity), communicate clearly (no need to get flowery or mention that you missed breakfast today), take the perspective of the giver (consider how we can increase another person’s willingness and make them feel good about giving), focus on their request without getting sidetracked by negative emotions or thinking errors, demonstrate confidence with tone and approach and the art of giving to get. I had the kids try again if they told me, “I’m gonna crash out if you don’t give me a pomegranate!” I called this a terrorist negotiation strategy that is the opposite of interpersonal effectiveness. My lighthearted feedback on their social communication skills was done in response to their efforts, intentions and the audience.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing where this pomegranate therapy is going to take me once the season starts up again. I’m thinking that I will use it diagnostically and to make informal assessments of self-care philosophies, awareness of hygiene and grooming, social-emotional reciprocity, meta emotional processing of unexpected delight and mess, approach vs. avoidance strategies, openness to new experiences, executive functioning in the face of inconvenience, willingness to work for a healthy food reward after it’s obtained and baseline levels of gratitude. The mental health and nutritional benefits of “pomegranate therapy” are explained above as well as obvious to anyone that tries it. The costs are minimal. I don’t think there are any risks to this therapy, nor adverse side effects. Bringing in my Righteously Delicious! mindset to work in a residential treatment setting has taught me and the adolescents that I work with that having fun interactions with healthy food can do wonders for our wellbeing and relationships.