Therapeutic and Reflective Writing

Last year I studied on the Professional Writing Academy’s Therapeutic and Reflective Writing course. It was an excellent addition to my MSc in Psychology in Education, bridging this with my writing tuition. The staff were lovely and supportive as I’ve come to expect from PWA.

So, I thought I would share some of my writing from the course:

“The first thing that stuck out to me was the poetry in the first reading. I came into this thinking, I’m a prose writer, I don’t really write poetry, but immediately I was drawn to this poem and started to think that maybe I need to use poetry to express myself in a different way to my prose. There’s something a lot more personal about poetry in many ways, although that isn’t exclusive. The thought of writing with a pen was also an interesting aspect, and the link with that cognitive experience. I was going to write these notes out longhand, but couldn’t find a pen in my bag (I transferred my pencil case to a bag as I was travelling at the weekend and forgot to put it back).

I’m also fascinated by the idea of writing without rules. When I’m commenting on students’ creative writing work it can be so difficult to remember this, because there are tropes, reader expectations. But that’s not why we’re writing here. The only reader may well be ourselves, if we even go back to read it. Or is the mere process of writing enough? Freewriting is so powerful in a creative sense, but I can imagine it being just as powerful in a therapeutic sense. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this goes.

The point about Melyvn Bragg’s novel is interesting [referring to this article: The Independent]. He claims that it wasn’t therapeutic, but based on the idea that it brought up a slew of painful emotions, but then isn’t that part of therapy? Feeling and processing. He then goes on to say that he shouldn’t have published it, but maybe that’s fair. The writing was for him to feel and to process those emotions rather than to shut them down, so maybe he didn’t need readers. It’s an interesting question about who you’re writing for, and also does it need to be a novel? It comes back to my earlier point about poetry.

I was diagnosed with ME/chronic fatigue syndrome when I was ten, and I think having learned reflection skills and how to live within myself meant I was always sort of destined to be a writer. I also think it’s allowed me to find headspace to process difficult thoughts and emotions, as I didn’t really have much choice as a child. I had to carry on, somehow. I suppose that I’ve always used writing then as a way of thinking things through.”

You can check out the course for yourself here: https://www.profwritingacademy.com/course/therapeutic-and-reflective-writing