The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing: Writing Myself

by Gillie Bolton, Kenneth C. Calman

Writing is a means of making sense of experience, and of arriving at a deeper understanding of the self. The use of creative writing therapeutically can complement verbal discussions, and offers a cost- and time-effective way of extending support to depressed or psychologically distressed patients. Suitable both for health-care professionals who wish to implement therapeutic writing with their patients, and for those wishing to start writing creatively in order to help themselves, The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing provides practical, well tried and tested suggestions for beginning to write and for developing writing further. It includes ideas for writing individually and for directing groups, and explores journal writing, poetry, fiction, autobiography and writing out trauma, with established writers and those who have taken up writing for private enjoyment.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Psychology

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Dr Gillie Bolton is an international authority on writing and author of a long publication list including nine books (one in 4th Edition), academic papers (many in top-ranking journals), as well as professional articles, poetry, and for a lay readership.

Early years in an Epping Forest village near London, in a seventeenth-century farmhouse and 2 years in Singapore, were augmented by school in Southwold, Suffolk. Social Anthropology (MA Cantab) at Cambridge University was a firm foundation on which to build work with people. Her PhD, from the University of East Anglia Medical School, is based on some of her many academic publications. Retired, she now lives in Central London and Derbyshire’s Hope Valley with her emeritus professor husband.

Reviews

[Isabelle Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and detailed discussion of the art of writing and its therapeutic applications. However, the author appears to overutilise simile in such a way that makes the discussions, although detailed, lack depth. It presents paradoxical natures of writing that are not delved into, leading to theoretical roads that lead nowhere

It's definitely worth the read, but lacking the ambition that could have made it great.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm going through my reading-nonfiction-is-fun phase. This has inspired me to start journaling again. There was also lots of stuff I'm not bothered about in it but whatever. Journaling yay!