Writing Routes. A Resource Handbook of Therapeutic Writing

Citation

McArdle, S. (2012), "Writing Routes. A Resource Handbook of Therapeutic Writing", Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 71-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/09641861211286348

As suggested by the title of this text, the editors have collected together a collection of ways of getting started and making progress in the fascinating field of using creative writing for personal and professional development. This very readable anthology collects together over 70 contributors who offer a diverse and rich array of personal experience of using creative writing. After a useful Preface from the editors – all acknowledged leading exponents and experts in this field – the text offers 11 chapters on differing aspects of this field. Each chapter is introduced by an overview by one of the editors. The chapter headings range from getting started to writing about the self, and from dealing with problematic issues to writing about managing transitions.

While each chapter itself is introduced by a brief but informative editorial, each of the half‐a‐dozen or so contributors within each of the chapters is then invited to select a piece of writing after having introduced the piece with specific reference to what it meant to them in terms of being beneficial to them. This speaks specifically to the manifesto of the editors which is to overcome that initial invitation to write, and with it, the dread of the empty page. As one can imagine, given that the meaning described will be as various and numerous as the contributors used, the explanations and works chosen are wonderfully wide‐ranging in subject matter, perspective and insight. I read the writers' words and pieces over a long Bank Holiday weekend by dipping into different parts as the mood took me, and was variously heartened, confounded, warmed and amused. At times, I was stopped in my tracks with the pain and distress of some of the work.

Given that the text itself is intended for “writing practitioners”, it might be the case that the works will be read in a more systematic way than described above. I should imagine this will work well given the range of topics and chapter organisation. Indeed, this is suggested in the forward, in which Gwyneth Lewis, the past National Poet of Wales, describes the need for detailed maps to help in getting started in putting pen to paper. For her, this book provides the “atlas”, enabling the new writer or experienced practitioner to navigate a creative landscape. I guess I had a less ordered journey what with Bank Holiday transport…

However, there is a serious point here in the idea of providing a route into the practice of writing for personal and professional development. And it is one which strikes me as very important in terms of the potential of creative writing for therapy. The idea is not new, but it is still one which is hugely underestimated in terms of the power for good. It is one which this text signals but does not discuss in any useful detail. Although the editors are leading exponents of the emergence of writing for personal and professional development, and of the use of creative writing as a “therapeutic writing”, there is a brief and relatively superficial section of the introduction only when this concept is touched upon. I do think that this is a missed opportunity, and I also felt rather let down given the text's sub‐title and promise of being a resource handbook for this very subject. In order to do justice to such an agenda – which I support absolutely – a more robust overview of the topic was required.

That said, I do not want to be overly critical of what is a truly wonderful collection of views and writings which I recommend to any reader, and especially to those who might feel the beginnings of a need to put themselves on paper. Certainly, I plan to use this with my own students when looking at using creative writing in the context of reflective practice. Again, this is something already discussed by the others elsewhere by the publishers, albeit not formally in the current series of Writing for Therapy or Personal Development within which this text sits.