INTRODUCTION TO POETRY THERAPY & THERAPEUTIC WRITING
11 people attended this course from a wide variety of professional and personal backgrounds. They included a counselor, psychotherapist, lecturer in nursing, retired minister, sex and relationship therapist, community artist, teacher of children excluded from school and many with a serious interest in writing. They came from Scotland, Cumbria, London, Bristol, New Zealand and Cornwall itself.
An innovative course focusing on how literature and writing can promote health and wellbeing will run at Truro Community Library from 15th – 17th July 2013, 10am -4.30pm each day. The course is led by Certified Poetry Therapist, Victoria Field,
The three-day course is designed to offer a solid introduction to the theory and practice of poetry therapy. It will explore ways of using creative writing with clients or patients in a variety of health and social care settings. The course also looks at the benefits of reflective, personal writing for professional practice and general wellbeing.
Ideally participants should attend all three days but this is negotiable for those with some experience – see below.
The course is aimed at medical and healthcare professionals (including doctors, nurses and clinical psychologists), counsellors, therapists, social workers, as well as anyone with a personal interest in writing for wellbeing. No previous writing experience is necessary, but more experienced creative writers will come away with a substantial collection of draft material including fiction, poems and memoir.
Sessions are practical, and participants will have the opportunity to try out techniques and use them as the basis for discussion. There will also be a variety of exercises, including individual tasks, work in small groups and as a whole class. Topics include group facilitation skills, narrative approaches and how to develop materials for workshops, as well as ethical considerations. It is a shortened version of one that Victoria ran with Anne Taylor at Falmouth University in July 2012 which attracted participants from France, Ireland and Lithuania. People were writers, teachers, therapists, doctors, psychologists and searchers for meaning in their life and work – often many of these at once!
Victoria has taught similar courses in many different settings, including regularly at Ty Newydd, National Writers Centre for Wales where the Writing in Health and Social Care Programme has been running for several years.
One previous participant, Carol Ross, an NHS writing practitioner from Cumbria, said: “I lead therapeutic writing groups for mental health inpatients and I attended the course in the hope of gaining skills and knowledge – which I certainly did. What I had not anticipated was how valuable the experience would be for me as a practitioner and as a person, in understanding how it feels to be on the other side: a participant in the group rather than the facilitator.”
Victoria comments: “I am delighted to offer this course in Truro. More people are finding that therapeutic writing offers a way of helping to maintain good health and the new NHS is looking at ways of promoting better self-care. It’s a genuinely cross-disciplinary practice and one of the pleasures of a course like this is seeing people from different backgrounds coming together.”
The Introduction to Poetry Therapy & Therapeutic Writing course takes place at Truro Community Library from 15th – 17th July 2013, 10am – 4.30pm
Fees are £195 per person for the full three days, £150 for two days and £85 for one day. CPD Certificates of Attendance will be provided.
To book, contact Victoria at victoriajfield@btconnect.com (note the j) or call 01227 788497
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