Creative Writing In Health And Social Care

'This book is really a must-have for therapists and others in the creative arts, so that you can see how the workings of the human mind can be displayed through the arts. Even with serious illness, the mind can talk. And that is the point of the book'. - Metapsychology Online Book Reviews 'The references cited at the end of each chapter are instructive and useful with some contributors drawing on memoirs and creative work and others on textbooks and papers. As Fiona points out in her introduction, those with an interest in the field - which includes clinicians, patients, arts managers, psychotherapists, writers, occupational therapists, teachers - I am sure you can add to the list - inevitably speak different languages, reflecting their different priorities. I agree with her argument that this contributes to a healthy diversity of practice that may offer "something for everyone" and we should resist narrow definitions. The challenge for those of us in the field is to locate ourselves on this strange and exciting map and to chart our own experiences in whatever languages are appropriate. Conferences, such as Strange Baggage and the increasingly popular Lapidus annual event provide an excellent opportunity to journey beyond our usual borders to exchange travellers' tales with our colleagues'. - Lapidus 'An incisive collection of essays and case studies, where theory is applied to practical goals: working out methods for how to help and understand those with problems threatening their sanity or stability. Creative expression can contribute to personal and community health.' - Writing in Education 'Creative Writing in Health and Social Care is full of experience of working with patients with dementia, hospital, hospice and occupational therapy patients, and those in primary care. This is innovative work - deeply helpful to the patients, illuminatively described.' - The British Journal of General Practice This unique and comprehensive 'map' of the topic of creative writing in health and social care brings together contributions from health and social care professionals and provides the information needed to teach, counsel and write. Principally exploring poetry and story writing and telling, case studies range from work with pre-literate children in post-war Macedonia to people with dementia in Britain. Complementing these insights, theory-based contributions provide context, comparing different arts therapies using psychoanalytic and phenomenological theories of art and ideas, assessing the value of creative writing in a health care setting, examining methods of training therapists and looking at the aims of creative writing in terms of self development. This holistic approach ensures that Creative Writing in Health and Social Care is an essential guide for health care professionals and others seeking to use creative writing in therapeutic settings.

Imagining new, introspective outlets for the support of mental and physical wellbeing, pracademic duo Mark Pearson and Helen Foster draw on their clinical and archival expertise to equip both healthcare professionals and general readers to unleash their creativity and unlock the comfort and creativity that putting pen to paper can bring.

This book weaves together service users' lived experiences of mental health recovery and ideas about how creative activities such as art, music, and creative reading and writing can promote it, particularly within social and community settings.

This groundbreaking book brings creative writing to social research. Its innovative format includes creatively written contributions by researchers from a range of disciplines, modelling the techniques outlined by the authors. The book is user-friendly and shows readers: • how to write creatively as a social researcher; • how creative writing can help researchers to work with participants and generate data; • how researchers can use creative writing to analyse data and communicate findings. Inviting beginners and more experienced researchers to explore new ways of writing, this book introduces readers to creatively written research in a variety of formats including plays and poems, videos and comics. It not only gives social researchers permission to write creatively but also shows them how to do so.

Publisher description

Good writing skills are essential for all students, but many students struggle to master good writing skills until later in their course. This book will help students doing health and social care subjects to better understand what good writing looks like, and how to do it themselves. The book shows students how to: *Plan pieces of writing *Execute good writing basics *Edit and refine their work *Write to a brief This essential guide includes multiple examples of good and bad writing to help students unpick the nuts and bolts of writing and writing skills. Taking an accessible approach, the authors include quotes and stories from real life students to help embolden students to tackle their writing fears - and become confident writers.

This book-length study of an eminent, distinguished and influential poet and contemporary woman of letters integrates analysis and a honed interpretation of the near-total gamut of the oeuvre to-date of Professor Fiona Sampson. The study includes biographical insight and synthesizes its rigorous discussions of the dominant rubric of Professor Sampson’s poetic métier, her prose in different genres, and the literary practices of over a decades-long and much-lauded literary career. This critical work finds and displays incisive and fruitful ways by which the oeuvre in question crosses boundaries in literary writing and practices with fertile results and evidences those cross-currents in a manner that indicates the trajectory of a sensibility or structure of feeling, one which though highly intelligent and self-aware is also deeply empathic. A lucid, coherent and compelling reading of Sampson’s main works makes this book a scintillating study and a much needed contribution to the current work being done on major contemporary poets and writers and, in particular, contemporary women figures, in the British and international literary scenes.

Write Yourself is the ideal introduction to how to facilitate groups and individuals in finding inspiration for their creative personal writing voices. This book explains how and why writing is such an illuminative, healing, and cathartic process, and provides many practical exercises that encourage the exploration of emotions, memories and experiences. Chapters cover the use of writing with a variety of client groups, including those made up of people suffering from depression, anxiety or health problems, and advice is given both on running and participating in successful writing groups. This book will be an invaluable resource for professionals working across the health, social care and caring professions, arts therapists and for everyone interested in the therapeutic qualities of creative writing.