fortnightly writing workshops
~self-healing through journalling ~
Sticks and stones, as the proverb says, can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
This is, of course, untrue. Words can hurt enormously — and they can heal. People have known this since time began: in ancient Egypt, pictures on pyramid walls show a healer dissolving words written on a leaf of papyrus in a solution to drink as a cure. Perhaps against dis-ease of the heart?
Five hundred years later, in first century C.E. Rome, the physician Soranus prescribed a good dose of tragedy at the theatre as an antidote against hyper-activity, and comedy as treatment for depression.
Quite how effective these approaches were is one question: that we can help heal ourselves through writing is another, and the therapeutic effects of writing the self have been abundantly shown.
Each week, the sessions invite you to delve deep into your own psyche, exploring your emotional make-up and thought processes through guided writing exercises.
This is not a course, but rather a series of discrete, though linked, workshops, inviting you to tap into your subconscious, discover answers, and most of all more questions.
While I am not a therapist but a writer, I have been receiving the benefits of therapy for a few years now, and am mentoring people in self-help programmes. I am using the strategies I’m passing on in my own healing journey, and am doing my best to create a safe space for us to think, feel, and write together. There will be opportunities to share our writing, but it’s not a must.
Themes
12 February: dreams
26 February: birth
12 March: new
19 March: ritual
What we do/for whom the workshops are
Anybody interested in writing and self-exploration! There is no need to have previous knowledge of writing nor any therapeutic experience.
We will do get-to-know-exercises to become comfortable with one another, warm-up writing exercises, a couple of longer writing exercises, and a brief reflection on the process of writing for therapeutic purposes.
Practicalities
*every other Sunday, noon at my cosy flat in the city centre
*online upon request
*duration: 60-90 minutes
*capped at 8 participants