How expressive writing could benefit you in the most unexpected ways
Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome – Adrienne Rich
In January 2015, Lapidus and Cornwall Arts for Health will be hosting a year-long programme of writing events and workshops to raise the profile of therapeutic writing in Cornwall. This is my story of how I found out about the powerful healing benefits of poetry therapy and came to run my own Writing for Recovery workshops.
Risk Assessment? Wooot?
‘You want me to write a risk assessment? For poetry?’ I scoffed. My consultant was carefully leafing through the six-week poetry therapy programme I had put together for the inpatients on the adult psychiatric ward we worked on.
‘Clinical governance is an important issue and any therapeutic procedures need to be provided with rigorous safety mechanisms in place,’ was her response. I was in my first year of psychiatry training and it felt like we had been discussing the logistics of running my poetry therapy group for weeks, when all I wanted to do was bash on and start the sessions.
I rolled my eyes and went off and asked my boyfriend, a health and safety manager for a shortbread factory (who knew making biscuits was so fraught with risk?!) to forward me a template for a risk assessment. I dutifully wrote down all the potential risks involved in writing and sharing poetry.
My consultant was apprehensive, and suggested she initially supervise my running of the sessions herself. Way to dampen the therapeutic environment for patients – have their consultant in the room – the one who may have sectioned them and the one responsible for the dose of any medications they are on and deciding when they are well enough to go home. Having the two of us there would have felt more like a ward round than an open space in which to express themselves via the medium of the written word. Luckily she saw my point of view on that one.
With her encouragement, I carried out a literature review of the evidence base and presented it along with a journal article review at the hospital’s weekly journal club in an attempt to convince
the medical staff of the evidence that suggested this was something that could really benefit certain patients.
In January 2015, Lapidus and Cornwall Arts for Health will be hosting a year-long programme of writing events and workshops to raise the profile of therapeutic writing in Cornwall. This is my story of how I found out about the powerful healing benefits of poetry therapy and came to run my own Writing for Recovery workshops.
Risk Assessment? Wooot?
‘You want me to write a risk assessment? For poetry?’ I scoffed. My consultant was carefully leafing through the six-week poetry therapy programme I had put together for the inpatients on the adult psychiatric ward we worked on.
‘Clinical governance is an important issue and any therapeutic procedures need to be provided with rigorous safety mechanisms in place,’ was her response. I was in my first year of psychiatry training and it felt like we had been discussing the logistics of running my poetry therapy group for weeks, when all I wanted to do was bash on and start the sessions.
I rolled my eyes and went off and asked my boyfriend, a health and safety manager for a shortbread factory (who knew making biscuits was so fraught with risk?!) to forward me a template for a risk assessment. I dutifully wrote down all the potential risks involved in writing and sharing poetry.
My consultant was apprehensive, and suggested she initially supervise my running of the sessions herself. Way to dampen the therapeutic environment for patients – have their consultant in the room – the one who may have sectioned them and the one responsible for the dose of any medications they are on and deciding when they are well enough to go home. Having the two of us there would have felt more like a ward round than an open space in which to express themselves via the medium of the written word. Luckily she saw my point of view on that one.
With her encouragement, I carried out a literature review of the evidence base and presented it along with a journal article review at the hospital’s weekly journal club in an attempt to convince
the medical staff of the evidence that suggested this was something that could really benefit certain patients.
It turns out she had a point and was right to be so cautious. As I found out through running my sessions, poetry is pretty powerful stuff. I later learned from a writer who had run a poetry group in an unsupervised setting with inpatients that a patient’s response to hearing a Dylan Thomas poem was to set himself on fire. So there is enormous capacity for unlocking powerful emotions but this is also what gives it its healing power.
Poetry therapist Victoria Field states that ‘expressive writing can be surprising, cathartic and, especially in groups, healing.’1 Writer Roselle Angwin describes therapeutic writing as a ‘powerful tool for coping with current life
difficulties as well as for dealing residual pain and unresolved grief and anger from the past.’2 It can be viewed as a spiritual discipline by which we come to know ourselves which may enable us to be ‘less hasty in dumping on others material which belongs with ourselves.’2
Finding out about therapeutic Writing
I first found out about therapeutic writing when I turned up in Falmouth for a four day Introduction to Therapeutic Writing course at Falmouth University, run by Victoria Field and health journalist Anne Taylor.
Before any kind of ice-breakers, we had to pick up our pens and simply write what was on our minds without letting the pen leave the page. Victoria’s soothing tone was therapeutic as she guided us through the exercises. She was a source of quiet wisdom as she listened to and acknowledged the emotional content and the bravery involved in sharing these unexpected words that welled up in each of us. When we first put pen to paper we had no idea what we needed to write, what needed to be said.
difficulties as well as for dealing residual pain and unresolved grief and anger from the past.’2 It can be viewed as a spiritual discipline by which we come to know ourselves which may enable us to be ‘less hasty in dumping on others material which belongs with ourselves.’2
Finding out about therapeutic Writing
I first found out about therapeutic writing when I turned up in Falmouth for a four day Introduction to Therapeutic Writing course at Falmouth University, run by Victoria Field and health journalist Anne Taylor.
Before any kind of ice-breakers, we had to pick up our pens and simply write what was on our minds without letting the pen leave the page. Victoria’s soothing tone was therapeutic as she guided us through the exercises. She was a source of quiet wisdom as she listened to and acknowledged the emotional content and the bravery involved in sharing these unexpected words that welled up in each of us. When we first put pen to paper we had no idea what we needed to write, what needed to be said.
I found myself writing down truths that would never have made it into my awareness had I not set my pen free on the page. I wrote a poem which now, looking back, would have stopped me from making a huge mistake if I had just listened to the wisdom I had accessed.
There is also a certain power over our emotions to be gained from wrestling our traumas into a certain form on the page. Organising chaos into order is enormously therapeutic.
For the logical types amongst you who like evidence and statistics, multiple and wide-ranging benefits have been measured in response to expressive writing exercises. Surprisingly many of these are physical including improved wound healing, immune function, pain scores and cortisol levels as well as a reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety.3
There are many proposed mechanisms for its action. One theory is that the act of suppressing negative emotions itself generates stress that lowers our resistance to physical illness.2
There is also a certain power over our emotions to be gained from wrestling our traumas into a certain form on the page. Organising chaos into order is enormously therapeutic.
For the logical types amongst you who like evidence and statistics, multiple and wide-ranging benefits have been measured in response to expressive writing exercises. Surprisingly many of these are physical including improved wound healing, immune function, pain scores and cortisol levels as well as a reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety.3
There are many proposed mechanisms for its action. One theory is that the act of suppressing negative emotions itself generates stress that lowers our resistance to physical illness.2
Could therapeutic writing benefit you?
The benefits are found to be most significant in those who
There are certain situations where it is unclear whether writing conferred any benefit such as in the immediate aftermath of a break-up or after a natural disaster, however it is always worth trying and just seeing whether you feel better or worse. And you will feel worse initially, just as after a therapy
session, you might find yourself with ‘heavy boots’ after writing. The mood benefits tend to be felt in the weeks and months that follow.
Six minutes to healing...
And six minutes is all you need.
With NHS waiting lists as long as 12-18 months for psychological therapies, and with medications having side-effects of varying tolerability, often leading to their discontinuation, it can only be worth a try.
I am not proposing that we bin the psychotropics in place of a Bic biro, but it is a cheap and holistic adjunct to medical therapies for the less complex, severe and enduring mental health problems such as mild to moderate depression and anxiety. And for anyone who is just keen do some
self-exploration it can be an enjoyable way to spend six minutes and the results will always surprise you.
The worst outcome is that you might get a cheesy poem or the start of a story. A biro can be scavved from your work place, hell you can get the paper from the office printer and you’re off. You could open a document on your computer desktop and try one of the prompts below, although it is believed that writing with a pen in your hand creates a more direct link to the subconscious.
Working with outpatients, I have found sharing published poems or reading my patients' own poems often deepens the therapeutic relationship. It can be an expression of empathy and an attempt to grasp your patient’s experience within the context of their life, rather than as a symptom on the diagnostic criteria for a classifiable mental disorder.
Expressive writing in practice
I met one patient in hospital who experienced a deep depressive episode with feelings of despair and pointlessness following a miscarriage early on in an unplanned pregnancy. It seemed that she'd felt that her loss was never acknowledged by her family as the death of a baby would have been. She had felt it as such and needed it to be recognised by those close to her. I dug out this poem about losing a baby for her and this seemed to help unlock her grief, allowing her to move forward having had her grief named and acknowledged.
As a student I was involved in setting up email and MSN messenger services to build on the telephone-based service provided by the overnight university support line. In my quest to research how to respond to emails with empathy, I emailed the Samaritans with a problem of my own to see how they responded. I never intended the exercise to be beneficial, however just the act of hitting ‘send’ felt like an enormous unburdening and the start of the healing process. From then on I learnt the art of composing a text message in my draft messages without the terrifying release of hitting send. This successfully minimised my reputation as a bunny boiler in the aftermath of break-ups. Everybody wins :)
Some 6 minute prompts to get you started…
Pick up a pen and write for six minutes using one of the following prompts, don’t lift the pen off the page, just keep writing the first thing that comes into your head and see where it takes you.
Lately I have mostly been feeling…
If I’m honest with myself I know I have to…
I keep telling myself that things would be different if I could just…
I am running a 'taster' poetry therapy workshop on behalf of Lapidus on the 21st June at 10am at The Globe in Truro. Tickets are £5 for non Lapidus members or free for members. If you want to come and see what it’s all about, email me at [email protected] to book a place.
The benefits are found to be most significant in those who
- Are prone to 'brooding' or negatively judging their emotional experience
- Those who are sensitive to rejection
- Relatively inexpressive, people with a high level of alexithymia (difficulty articulating their emotional experience in words.)
There are certain situations where it is unclear whether writing conferred any benefit such as in the immediate aftermath of a break-up or after a natural disaster, however it is always worth trying and just seeing whether you feel better or worse. And you will feel worse initially, just as after a therapy
session, you might find yourself with ‘heavy boots’ after writing. The mood benefits tend to be felt in the weeks and months that follow.
Six minutes to healing...
And six minutes is all you need.
With NHS waiting lists as long as 12-18 months for psychological therapies, and with medications having side-effects of varying tolerability, often leading to their discontinuation, it can only be worth a try.
I am not proposing that we bin the psychotropics in place of a Bic biro, but it is a cheap and holistic adjunct to medical therapies for the less complex, severe and enduring mental health problems such as mild to moderate depression and anxiety. And for anyone who is just keen do some
self-exploration it can be an enjoyable way to spend six minutes and the results will always surprise you.
The worst outcome is that you might get a cheesy poem or the start of a story. A biro can be scavved from your work place, hell you can get the paper from the office printer and you’re off. You could open a document on your computer desktop and try one of the prompts below, although it is believed that writing with a pen in your hand creates a more direct link to the subconscious.
Working with outpatients, I have found sharing published poems or reading my patients' own poems often deepens the therapeutic relationship. It can be an expression of empathy and an attempt to grasp your patient’s experience within the context of their life, rather than as a symptom on the diagnostic criteria for a classifiable mental disorder.
Expressive writing in practice
I met one patient in hospital who experienced a deep depressive episode with feelings of despair and pointlessness following a miscarriage early on in an unplanned pregnancy. It seemed that she'd felt that her loss was never acknowledged by her family as the death of a baby would have been. She had felt it as such and needed it to be recognised by those close to her. I dug out this poem about losing a baby for her and this seemed to help unlock her grief, allowing her to move forward having had her grief named and acknowledged.
As a student I was involved in setting up email and MSN messenger services to build on the telephone-based service provided by the overnight university support line. In my quest to research how to respond to emails with empathy, I emailed the Samaritans with a problem of my own to see how they responded. I never intended the exercise to be beneficial, however just the act of hitting ‘send’ felt like an enormous unburdening and the start of the healing process. From then on I learnt the art of composing a text message in my draft messages without the terrifying release of hitting send. This successfully minimised my reputation as a bunny boiler in the aftermath of break-ups. Everybody wins :)
Some 6 minute prompts to get you started…
Pick up a pen and write for six minutes using one of the following prompts, don’t lift the pen off the page, just keep writing the first thing that comes into your head and see where it takes you.
Lately I have mostly been feeling…
If I’m honest with myself I know I have to…
I keep telling myself that things would be different if I could just…
I am running a 'taster' poetry therapy workshop on behalf of Lapidus on the 21st June at 10am at The Globe in Truro. Tickets are £5 for non Lapidus members or free for members. If you want to come and see what it’s all about, email me at [email protected] to book a place.
Links:
To e-mail the Samaritans [email protected]
Victoria Field http://poetrytherapynews.wordpress.com/
James Pennebaker’s research http://www.utexas.edu/features/2005/writing/
Little snowdrop poem http://www.funeralhelper.org/little-snowdrop-unknown.html
References
1. http://poetrytherapynews.com/
2. Writing the bright moment: inspiration and guidance for writers / Roselle Angwin
3. http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/11/5/338.full
4. Therapeutic potential of creative writing: Writing Myself / Gillie Bolton
5. Writing cures: an introductory handbook of writing in counselling and psychotherapy.
6. Lapidus: Words for Wellbeing http://www.lapidus.org.uk/
7. http://www.artsforhealthcornwall.org.uk/
To e-mail the Samaritans [email protected]
Victoria Field http://poetrytherapynews.wordpress.com/
James Pennebaker’s research http://www.utexas.edu/features/2005/writing/
Little snowdrop poem http://www.funeralhelper.org/little-snowdrop-unknown.html
References
1. http://poetrytherapynews.com/
2. Writing the bright moment: inspiration and guidance for writers / Roselle Angwin
3. http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/11/5/338.full
4. Therapeutic potential of creative writing: Writing Myself / Gillie Bolton
5. Writing cures: an introductory handbook of writing in counselling and psychotherapy.
6. Lapidus: Words for Wellbeing http://www.lapidus.org.uk/
7. http://www.artsforhealthcornwall.org.uk/