Examining the potential of creative writing as a therapeutic tool, particularly in terms of its influence on the self and personal development, The Self on the Page is divided into two parts. In Part One representative practitioners provide an overview of current work in the field, based on their experience of conducting courses, workshops and research projects with creative writing students, and clients as diverse as people with learning disabilities or dementia and people in hospices, using various genres of creative writing from poetry to autobiography and literary fiction. This section also contains many practical suggestions for writing techniques that can be used for personal development, whether working with writers' groups or with client groups in health care and the social services.
Part Two explores the theoretical background to the therapeutic uses of creative writing, with particular reference to psychoanalysis, philosophy of language, and literary and social theory. Illustrating a wide range of different approaches, the contributors provide an introduction to thinking about creative writing in a personal development context with suggestions for further reading, and look at the potential evolution of therapeutic creative writing in the future.
Academics with an interest in textual practice, language and cultural theory; practitioners and theorists of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis; arts therapists and their educators; arts providers.
Introduction, Celia Hunt and Fiona Sampson. Part 1 Current Practice of Creative Writing in Personal Development. 1.Writing and the Voice of the Child: Fictional Autobiography and Personal Development, Celia Hunt 2.The Self as Source: Creative Writing Generated from Personal Reflection, Cheryl Moskowitz, creative writer 3. The Web of Words: Collaborative Writing and Mental Health, Graham Hartill, Newport and Abergavenny MIND 4.`Men Wearing Pyjamas': Using Creative Writing with People with Learning Disabilities. Fiona Sampson. 5.Writing or Pills? Therapeutic Writing in Primary Health Care. Gillie Bolton, Sheffield University. 6. Final Fictions? Creative Writing and Terminally Ill People. Colin Archer, freelance writer. 7. A Matter of Life and Death of the Mind: Creative Writing and Dementia Sufferers, John Killick, Dementia Services Development Centre, University of Stirling Part 2: Theoretical Contexts for Creative Writing in Personal Development. 8.The Creative Word and the Created Life: The Cultural Context for Deep Autobiography, Peter Abbs, University of Sussex. 9. Thinking about Language as Our Way through the World: Some Sources for a Model, Fiona Sampson. 10. Writing, the Self and the Social Process. Mary Stuart, University of Sussex. 11. The Empty Word and the Full Word: The Emergence of Truth in Writing, Trevor Pateman, University of Sussex. 12.The Transformative Effect of Reading, Janet Campbell, University of Sussex. 13. Autobiography and the Psychotherapeutic Process, Celia Hunt. 14.Towards a Writing Therapy? The Implications of Existing Practice and Theory, Fiona Sampson and Celia Hunt.
