Thursday, June 06, 2013

Creative writing may be a form of soulful healng

Romance writer Nhys Glover considers "Why Writing is a Form of Therapy" in this piece posted by Orangeberry Book Tours. Glover writes about her book, Labyrinth of Light, started after her son died suddenly and she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
"I bounced back quite dramatically from my ordeal, and my specialist seemed very interested in my book and the part it played in my recovery. That led me to research writing for healing and then to creating a course around it. (I was a Head Teacher of Further Education at the time.)

I discovered that the Soul (as distinct from the Spirit as described by Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul) is like a shy doe. You can’t heal it by a direct approach like analysis. You can only heal it by indirect means, like imaginative or creative processes." 
She concludes, "Writing is the most profound method of healing I’ve found, and I continue to use it for myself and others. What I love is that you don’t even have to know healing is taking place. It just happens as a by-product of the process as I write or as my reader reads."