Let It Flow: Creative Expressions and Recovery

[Pages:4]Illustration by Istvan Orosz

Let It Flow: Creative Expressions and Recovery

Ashland County RSVP Conference September 2015

JoAnn Streeter Shade, M.A.P.C., D.Min.

Description: The workshop will provide an overview as to the role creative writing can play in mental health and addictions recovery and support. Sample interventions will be presented, and participants will be given the opportunity to participate in an abbreviated creative writing workshop.

Learning objectives: 1. The participants will gain an awareness of how the use of creative writing can improve mental health 2. The participants will be introduced to various techniques of creative writing 3. The participants will experience a sample writing workshop and will complete a brief creative writing assignment

Writing and Improved Mental Health

Recovery: a positive social and personal journey and engagement

The goals of writing for recovery

Providing a safe place for participants to explore the creative writing process Reducing participants' anxieties about creative writing Offering a supportive environment to explore and discover individual writing voices Aiding participants in their work towards recovery and personal and social meaning

The uses of writing in the improvement of mental health Reduction in depression, increase in productivity, reduction in doctors' visits, etc.

 Introspection The role of story, of creating an alternative story Maxine Hong Kingston: "Story gives shape

and form to chaos" Redemptive re-telling Creating new images: Dr. Fred Von Stieff reminds us that "the addicted brain is a museum

of distorted pictures. Recovery brings forth a new framing of images . . . to hang on the mental walls that have been left so bare by addiction." The value of self-expression, the development of voice

Narrative Therapy

Goal-Setting Theory ? making maps of meaning. Reflecting on important moments in past, identifying personal motivations, creating plans for the future. Past authoring and future authoring. (Jordan Peterson, University of Toronto)

Practical example: Shine your sink before going to bed. Get dressed ? all the way to shoes.

Writing Options, Techniques and Interventions

Journaling Progoff and Pennebaker - history

reflection, self-observation daily happenings catharsis lists portraits guided imagery from an altered point of view unsent letter dialogue

Eight Suggestions for New Journal Writers (from )

Protect your privacy. ... Start with an entrance meditation. ... Date every entry. ... Keep (and re-read) what you write. ... Write quickly. ...

 Start writing; keep writing. ... Tell yourself the truth. ... Write naturally.

Concept of directed journals ? providing a starting place that goes beyond a blank page

Poetry

Free verse Rhyming verse Haiku

The haiku is a Japanese verse in three lines. Line one has 5 syllables, line 2 has 7 syllables and line three has 5 syllables. Haiku is a mood poem and it doesn't use any metaphors or similes.

Short Story

Fiction

This I Believe

Six Word Memoirs It was not right with you Felled by dreams, saved by friends. I should have bought a GPS Moved every year, then came home I came. I saw. I sat

Letters to the editor

Op Ed piece

Songs, hymns

Blog, social media

Lifeline

Life Script questionnaire (Thompson 2003)

Stepping Stones ? recording landmark events, writing alternative stories

Sample Writing Workshop

Welcome and Introductions

`A word is dead when it's been said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.' Emily Dickinson

Affirmations

Reading and Response

Focus Topic

Writing Exercise: Dr. Seuss Prompts Would you eat green eggs and ham on a boat with a goat? Why or why not? Make a list of things you could do to cheer up the Grinch.

Homework Assignment

For Future Reading

Baikie, Karen A. and Wilhelm, Kay. Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing." Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 11 (2005): 338-346.

Bolton, Gillie. Creative writing and personal development. 2013.

Field, Nathan. "The Therapeutic Action of Writing in Self-Disclosure and Self-Expression".

Graybeal, A., Sexton, J.D. & Pennebaker, J.W. "The Role of Story-Making in Disclosure Writing: The Psychometrics of Narrative".

Harwood, T. Mark and L'Abate, Luciano. "Distance Writing: Helping without Seeing Participants." Self-Help in Mental Health: A Critical Review. London: Springer, 2010.

L'Abate, Luciano. Distance Writing and Computer-Assisted Interventions in Psychiatry and Mental Health. Westport: Ablex Publishing, 2001.

Morisano, D., Hirsh, J.B., Peterson, J.B., Pihl, R.O. & Shore, B.M. "Setting, elaborating, and reflecting on personal goals improves academic performance."" Journal of Applied Psychology 95 (2010): 255-264.

Pennebaker, James W. "Writing About Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process". Psychological Science 8.3 (May 1997): 162-166.

Taylor, Sam, Helen Leigh-Phippard, Alex Grant. Writing for recovery: a practice development project for mental health service users, carers and survivors. 2014. International Practive Development Journal. 4(1) (5).

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