Writing Works: A Resource Handbook for Therapeutic Writing Workshops and Activities

by Victoria Field (Editor), Gillie Bolton (Editor), Blake Morrison (Foreword by), Kate Thompson (Editor)

Overview

The use of creative writing as a route to personal development is a powerful therapeutic tool - a fact that is recognized in the growing numbers of workshops and writing groups within professional contexts, including clinical, health and criminal justice settings. Writing Works is a guide for writers or therapists working with groups or individuals and is full of practical advice on everything from the equipment needed to run a session to ideas for themes, all backed up by the theory that underpins the methods explained. Experienced practitioners in the field contribute detailed illuminating accounts of organizing writing workshops for a wide range of different clients, together with examples of their outcomes. This book will be an invaluable start-up reference for arts therapists and professionals working across the health, social care and caring professions, and one that will be referred to again and again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781846425493
Publisher:	Kingsley, Jessica Publishers
Publication date:	08/15/2006
Series:	Writing for Therapy or Personal Development
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	923 KB

About the Author

Gillie Bolton is a freelance consultant in Medical Humanities and Therapeutic Writing and lives in Derbyshire, UK. She is Literature and Medicine editor of the Journal of Medical Humanities and Progress in Palliative Care, and is associate editor of the Journal of Poetry Therapy. She is author of the key creative writing therapy text The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing: Writing Myself, also published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Victoria Field is a writer, poetry therapist and is Chair of Lapidus (Literary Arts in Personal Development), London, UK. She is also writer-in-residence at Truro Cathedral and was the first qualified poetry therapist in the UK. Kate Thompson is a BACP (the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) Senior Accredited Counsellor and Supervisor, a journal therapist, and Vice-Chair of Lapidus.
Victoria Field has a degree in Pyschology, an MA in Cultural Policy and has worked for the British Council in Istanbul, Moscow and Pakistan. She subsequently trained as a Poetry Therapist with the US National Association for Poetry Therapy. She has received two awards from NAPT for her international work. She is also a published poet and, as a playwright, is an Associate Artist at Hall for Cornwall.
Gillie Bolton has worked in reflective and therapeutic writing for personal and professional development for twenty-five years, and has written and edited five books, one of which is now in its third edition. A grandmother of three, she lives in Bloomsbury, London, and Hope Valley, Derbyshire.
Kate Thompson is a BACP senior accredited counsellor and supervisor and a journal therapist. After gaining a degree in English Literature from Cambridge University and therapeutic training, she developed a method of combining the two. She is a faculty member of the Center for Journal Therapy and Institute for Therapeutic Writing and lives in Colorado, USA.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Blake Morrison. Someone Says by David Hart. Acknowledgements. 1. Introduction. What this book offers and why. Gillie Bolton. Running groups. Victoria Field. Writing in therapy. Kate Thompson. Part One: Writing from without. 2. Warming Up and Working Together. Edited by Kate Thompson. 3. Writing About Place. Edited by Victoria Field. 4. Writing from Objects. Edited by Gillie Bolton. 5. Writing from Published Poems. Edited by Victoria Field. 6. Writing in Form. Edited by Victoria Field. Part Two: Writing from Within. 7. What People Need to Write. Edited by Kate Thompson. 8. Different Masks. Edited by Victoria Field. 9. Who Am I? Edited by Gillie Bolton. 10. Life's Journey. Edited by Gillie Bolton. 11. Loss and Change. Edited by Kate Thompson. 12. Conclusion. Index.