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Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives

by Louise Desalvo

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315282,352 (4.16)7
Acclaimed author Louise DeSalvo draws on her own experience and the lives of others to examine the healing power of the writing process. In this landmark work, DeSalvo uses her twenty years as a teacher of writing to explore how the creative process can in fact be a restorative tool. She looks at the cutting-edge scientific research on the subject and presents dozens of anecdotes of famous writers and beginners in the field to illuminate her theory that writing can repair pain--and keep our demons at bay. In Writing as a Way of Healing, DeSalvo also develops a detailed program of exercises that shows writers and nonwriters alike how to "open up" to themselves through writing, write regularly in a relaxed way, and achieve a state of personal acceptance through writing. DeSalvo's techniques will provide a solid foundation for writers to benefit both physically and emotionally from telling their stories. DeSalvo writes with remarkable insight of a wide range of writers who have found that their work helped them to heal, including Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Kenzaburo Oe, Djuna Barnes, Peter Handke, Jamaica Kincaid, and Mark Doty. In these pages, we become familiar with writers' stories of healing: Isabel Allende deals with the anguish of sitting near her comatose daughter's bedside by beginning to compose a letter to her that eventually becomes the memoir Paula. Henry Miller, despondent when his wife, June, left him for another woman and contemplating suicide, instead works through the night on a story that details his life with June. This brief outline, written during a time of Miller's sharpest despair, serves as the inspiration for his greatest novels. DeSalvo illustrates how writers can find solace in their work if they ensure that they have a safe environment and a deliberate plan to approach the writing process. She also discusses what went wrong for writers "at risk" like Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, and she warns of the danger of using writing as a call for help instead of seeking help. According to DeSalvo, the way to responsibly write, to heal, is to make an effort to understand our experiences as we write about them. The healing power comes from the reflection on the pain we are living through. In this inspiring book, highly acclaimed author and teacher Louise DeSalvo reveals the healing power of writing. Based on her twenty years of research, DeSalvo show how anyone can use writing as a way to heal the emotional and physical wounds that are an inevitable part of life. She draws on the journals, diaries, letters, and works of dozens of famous writers and students of the craft to illustrate how people "change physically and psychologically when they work on projects that grow from a deep, authentic place." 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 wiring process. Writing as a Way of Healing includes valuable advice and practical techniques to guide and inspire both experienced and beginning writers.… (more)
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» See also 7 mentions

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I have mixed feelings about this book. There was some good advice in here to be sure, and I thought it gave some good insight into the relationship between writing and mental health that I hadn't thought about before. I particularly liked the parts about writing as a general practice, not necessarily about writing about emotional pain specifically, and how it can help one do well emotionally.

But at the same time there was an odd thread of judgmentalness towards people with mental illness, which is not exactly what one would expect from a book dealing with emotional pain. The author seemed much more sympathetic towards people who have experienced specific instances of trauma (which seemed to be mainly who the book was written for) but do not have a diagnosed mental illness than people who are just bipolar or depressed. She said some pretty shitty things about Sylvia Plath (who's my favourite author and someone I'm very sensitive about) and said numerous times that she "didn't have a mother" because her mother was depressed and sometimes had a hard time taking care of her when she was growing up. As someone who's bipolar, reading things like that really got to me. I definitely expected more sympathy from someone writing a book like this.

Overall I thought it was a worthwhile read in spite of the parts that bothered me. I'm going to be taking some of the advice into consideration with my own writing. ( )
  selfcallednowhere | Feb 21, 2016 |
I have now read this book twice. The first time was shortly after my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer and it just seemed like a good time. This time just seemed like a good time because I remember it being so very comforting as a writing instruction book in general - a book about telling our stories. And it has such a wealth of examples of other great pieces of literature and authors who have used writing to save themselves from destruction and helped themselves through pain and illness.

There are some jewels in this book.

I loved this: (Alice) Walker compares her lifesaving habit of storytelling to the tradition of native American sand painting. In Native American cultures, she reports, “when you feel sick at heart, sick in soul, you do sand paintings. Or you make a basket. The thing is that you are focused on creating something. And while you’re doing that, there’s a kind of spiritual alchemy that happens and you turn that bad feeling into something that becomes a golden light. It’s all because you are intensely creating something that is beautiful. And in Native American cultures, by the time you’ve finished the sand painting, you’re well. the point is to heal yourself.”

I definitely recommend this book if you are looking for a way to help yourself through a hard time, a health crisis, sadness, or a way to heal from anything. We all have something from which to heal. Tell your story. Even if you keep it to yourself, if you follow these steps in writing it down, you can help heal your soul. ( )
  KinnicChick | May 26, 2010 |
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Acclaimed author Louise DeSalvo draws on her own experience and the lives of others to examine the healing power of the writing process. In this landmark work, DeSalvo uses her twenty years as a teacher of writing to explore how the creative process can in fact be a restorative tool. She looks at the cutting-edge scientific research on the subject and presents dozens of anecdotes of famous writers and beginners in the field to illuminate her theory that writing can repair pain--and keep our demons at bay. In Writing as a Way of Healing, DeSalvo also develops a detailed program of exercises that shows writers and nonwriters alike how to "open up" to themselves through writing, write regularly in a relaxed way, and achieve a state of personal acceptance through writing. DeSalvo's techniques will provide a solid foundation for writers to benefit both physically and emotionally from telling their stories. DeSalvo writes with remarkable insight of a wide range of writers who have found that their work helped them to heal, including Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Kenzaburo Oe, Djuna Barnes, Peter Handke, Jamaica Kincaid, and Mark Doty. In these pages, we become familiar with writers' stories of healing: Isabel Allende deals with the anguish of sitting near her comatose daughter's bedside by beginning to compose a letter to her that eventually becomes the memoir Paula. Henry Miller, despondent when his wife, June, left him for another woman and contemplating suicide, instead works through the night on a story that details his life with June. This brief outline, written during a time of Miller's sharpest despair, serves as the inspiration for his greatest novels. DeSalvo illustrates how writers can find solace in their work if they ensure that they have a safe environment and a deliberate plan to approach the writing process. She also discusses what went wrong for writers "at risk" like Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, and she warns of the danger of using writing as a call for help instead of seeking help. According to DeSalvo, the way to responsibly write, to heal, is to make an effort to understand our experiences as we write about them. The healing power comes from the reflection on the pain we are living through. In this inspiring book, highly acclaimed author and teacher Louise DeSalvo reveals the healing power of writing. Based on her twenty years of research, DeSalvo show how anyone can use writing as a way to heal the emotional and physical wounds that are an inevitable part of life. She draws on the journals, diaries, letters, and works of dozens of famous writers and students of the craft to illustrate how people "change physically and psychologically when they work on projects that grow from a deep, authentic place." 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 wiring process. Writing as a Way of Healing includes valuable advice and practical techniques to guide and inspire both experienced and beginning writers.

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