This is the first of a new series of blogs on creative therapeutic writing
Woman’s Hour kicked off the year with a discussion about the value of writing with four authors who had written autobiographically. Presenter, Emma Barnett, teased out whether writing could be, in its own right, a ‘therapy’ and challenged the ethics of memoir publication which revealed family stories.
Discussion between these well-published women was robust and unravelled the points succinctly. Two of the speakers, Cathy Rentzenbrink and Arifa Akbar had written about the death of a sibling. American novelist Ann Patchett spoke of her collection of personal essays. Writer and psychotherapist Julia Samuels outlined the connection between therapy, writing and research studies. Those of us involved with creative and therapeutic writing know that the research and anecdotal evidence supports the healing benefits of expressive and reflective writing.
Inevitably the conversation focussed on family trauma and grief. I remember hearing Melvyn Bragg talk of the dangers he felt when he wrote Remember Me (2008) — an autobiographical fiction about the suicide of his first wife. ‘I wanted to get to the heart of what had been and still is a thing of my own darkness. Fiction was the only way to drive there: autobiography was the only road.’
Therapeutic Writing
It’s not all darkness, however, nor is therapeutic writing always memoir material. I believe the power of the imagination creates a parallel inner world which alters perspectives and finds solutions to intransigent feelings or highly charged memories. Exploratory writing gives the opportunity to create an expanded inner space for a different perspective. Or what is called reframing. Particularly about relationships and conflict.
This works particularly well with therapeutic writing using literary strategies like metaphor, dialogue and experimenting with voice. Fictionalizing personal stories can be therapeutic when the original emotional charge is written into the narrative. For publication of memoir, however, there are invariably permissions to be sought and all the speakers talked about discussions with family members before their books came out.
There is a huge need for guiding personal writing. Writing courses have mushroomed in the last few decades; tutors and lecturers have become aware of how to manage the inevitable outpouring of feelings that may present in their classes as people write about their lives. There is much talk about keeping people safe. But this does not mean you can prevent distress as emotions are revisited. Those sort of feelings need space to be felt and described. The darkness has to be touched.
The stuff of therapeutic writing, says Gillie Bolton author of many publications on the subject, is the ‘smearing over the page’ of ‘the writer’s bleeding heart’. When we allow splurges of words onto the page we do not need to worry about grammar, spelling and sentence construction. Gillie emphasizes in her books that ‘there is no right way to write’ and that ‘the most important rule for this kind of writing is that there are no rules’.
But can writing replace therapy? The question which Emma Barnett was intent on trying to get answered and I was pleased to hear complex answers from her guests. I really want to turn this question on its head. What matters are the intentions and/or needs of the individual concerned.
In my own creative therapeutic writing practice, the people I see tend to have their own therapy in place. Therapy is a different kind of beast to ferret out the darkness. A therapist may hold the space for the other person to enter the shadows of their life. The page is the container for a person to relate to themselves through the written word. I see my own job as holding an exploratory space with open conversation which is anchored in writing. This nature of open conversation is at the heart of Robin and Joan Shohet’s book on supervision with the subtitle of Creating Transformative Conversations.
As a writer I have spent years reflecting on what therapeutic writing may achieve. There have been times when I thought the writing was definitely more powerful than psychotherapy. But each has their place. Even though I have a background in humanistic psychotherapy, as a practitioner I am aware of my limitations and address these issues with those who come to my supervision workshops with themes such as boundaries and responsibilities.
Scribbling is where I start with my own writing, invariably followed by numerous drafts which help me distill my experiences and thoughts. For editing I pretend I am the reader and become rigorous and ruthless with my work. Having other trusted writing colleagues for feedback is part of the final stages to finished pieces of writing. The whole process, I find, from first words on the page to published books, is of therapeutic value.
Anyone who feels that pull to put their lives on the page needs to find trust for themselves and this process of writing. In doing so they will reveal their own individual voice and would do well to find support, whether literary or therapeutic.
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© Monica Suswin 25 January 2022
Refs:
Bolton, G. (1999). The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. p.106.
Bragg, M. (2009). On Autobiographical Fiction. The Sunday Times, 8 February 2009. (accessed: 20.01.2022).
Shohet, R & Shohet, J (2020). In Love with Supervision: Creating Transformative Conversations. Monmouth: PCCS Books.
Banner Photo: Constellations of Light, Vienna International Airport — through the aeroplane window. December 2019