RESOURCES FOR RECOVERY FROM ELIZABETH FISHEL
STEPS TO TAKE TO USE WRITING FOR HEALING:
1. Get a journal that you enjoy writing in.
2. Find a quiet time to write regularly or from time to time.
3. Find a good place and time to write.
4. Consider writing with a buddy or with a small group.
5. Join an ongoing group for support, guidance, and inspiration.
5 WAYS JOURNAL-WRITING HELPS WITH RECOVERY:
1. You can keep a record of your experience including surgeries, treatment, what helps, your ups and downs.
2. You can begin to tell your story, observing your recovery process and making meaning of your experience.
3. You’ll have an outlet for your feelings, a place to vent without judgment, a way to cope with the bad days and embrace the good ones.
4. You can express your gratitude for everything you appreciate during the healing process.
5. You can plan for the future and reflect on what’s happened in the past.
WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY WRITERS’ GROUPS
For more than 25 years I’ve led women’s writers’ groups in my Oakland, California living room, the Wednesday and Friday Writers. Drawing on my own experience as the author of five nonfiction books about women’s and families’ lives, I help guide each writer to find her own voice and grow in skill and confidence. The groups are open to writers at all stages from those beginning and writing for self-discovery, personal expression, and healing to more experienced writers who are publishing their work.
I also lead several weekend or longer writers’ retreats each year at beautiful, inspiring places including the Mesa Refuge in Point Reyes Station, CA and Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico.
For more information, please visit my website - www.wednesdaywriters.com
READ OUR ANTHOLOGIES, WEDNESDAY WRITERS and SOMETHING THAT MATTERS
The Wednesday and Friday Writers created two anthologies of passionate first-person essays about family and identity, love and loss, illness and recovery, and the daily pleasures and surprises of ordinary life: Wednesday Writers, published in 2003 and Something That Matters, 2007. Co-edited by Elizabeth Fishel and longtime group member Terri Hinte, the anthologies are fundraisers for two breast care centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at the University of California/San Francisco Hospital in S.F. and The Carol Ann Read Breast Health Center at Alta Bates Summit Hospital in Oakland. As of 2019, the books have raised $34,000 for the two hospitals.
For more information and to order these anthologies, please visit http://www.amazon.com/
BOOKS ABOUT WRITING AS HEALING
Expressive Writing: Words that Heal, paperback, 2014 • James Pennebaker and John Evans
Expressive Writing: Words that Heal provides research results, in layman's terms, which demonstrate how and when expressive writing can improve health. It explains why writing can often be more helpful than talking when dealing with trauma, and it prepares the reader for their writing experience. The book looks at the most serious issues and helps the reader process them. From the instructions: ''Write about what keeps you awake at night. The emotional upheaval bothering you the most and keeping you awake at night is a good place to start writing.''
Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives, pb. 2000 • Louise Desalvo
DeSalvo's program is based on the best available and most recent scientific studies about the efficacy of using writing as a restorative tool. With insight and wit, she illuminates how writers, from Virginia Woolf to Henry Miller to Audre Lorde to Isabel Allende, have been transformed by the writing process. Writing as a Way of Healing includes valuable advice and practical techniques to guide and inspire both experienced and beginning writers.
Writing Out the Storm: Reading and Writing Your Way Through Serious Illness or Injury, pb., 2002 • Barbara Abercrombie
This powerful and deeply inspirational handbook is for anyone coping with serious illness or injury-be it theirs or that of a loved one-who wants and needs to help themselves through the healing process. Offering her own experience with breast cancer, as well as stories from other authors who have suffered from illnesses or severe injuries-from Stephen King to Lance Armstrong-Abercrombie encourages readers to write what is in their hearts and to benefit from the power of shared experience. Using writing as therapy, Writing Out the Storm is a book about healing the soul.
Journaling With Clients, 2014 • Susan Borkin
While much has been written about the physical and emotional benefits of writing, little has been written specifically for mental health professionals detailing how to use therapeutic journaling with their clients. Therapeutic journaling―any type of writing or related expressive process used for the purpose of psychological healing or growth―can be an extremely helpful adjunctive therapy. When integrated into an overall treatment plan, regardless of the therapist’s clinical orientation, journaling can become a dynamic tool for personal growth and healing.
The first part of this book, “Journaling and the Clinical Process,” gives an overview of therapeutic journaling and the many potential benefits from its use. It provides concrete and specific steps for introducing journaling to psychotherapy clients and answers questions about structure and logistics.
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ABOUT ELIZABETH FISHEL
Elizabeth Fishel is the author of five nonfiction books about women’s and families’ lives, including Sisters; Reunion; and Getting To 30. She has contributed to many publications including Vogue, Oprah’s O, Parents, Ms., The Writer, and The NY Times Book Review. She has taught at UC Berkeley in the Continuing Studies program and at the Graduate School of Journalism and has led the Wednesday and Friday Writers’ groups for more than 25 years. For more, please visit www.elizabethfishel.com