The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing: Writing Myself

The act of writing is not just a form of communication but also a means to make sense of experience and arrive at a deeper understanding of the self. The combination of the creativity of the process with the achievement of something tangible increases feelings of self-confidence and self-value. Thus creative writing has been recognized as a form of complementary therapy to talking and reflecting and offers a cost-and time-effective way of extending support to depressed of psychologically distressed patients. Suitable for both health-care professionals who wish to implement therapeutic writing with their patients and those wishing to start writing creatively in order to help themselves, this text provides practical, tried and tested suggestions for beginning to write and for developing writing further.