The Therapeutic Pen: Helping Youth Through Poem-Making and Expressive Writing
Format
Workshop
First Presenter's Institution
Five Stones Counseling
First Presenter’s Email Address
Jo@FiveStones.org
First Presenter's Brief Biography
Jo Crosby combines over twenty-five years of clinical counseling experience with a love for teaching and writing. She leads workshops and retreats on various topics, helping people build strong, healthy relationships. As a counselor she has experience in individual, family, marriage, and group counseling. As a clinician, she has extensive training in play therapy, child abuse and neglect, and trauma work. Jo has a passion for grief work, relationship issues, and marital therapy. Having worked with children, adolescents, and adults, she brings a unique blend of creativity, insight, and seriousness to her office. Jo is a Licensed Professional Counselor and a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors.
Second Presenter's Institution
NA
Second Presenter’s Email Address
NA
Second Presenter's Brief Biography
NA
Third Presenter's Institution
NA
Third Presenter’s Email Address
NA
Third Presenter's Brief Biography
NA
Fourth Presenter's Institution
NA
Fourth Presenter’s Email Address
NA
Fourth Presenter's Brief Biography
NA
Fifth Presenter's Institution
NA
Fifth Presenter’s Email Address
NA
Fifth Presenter's Brief Biography
NA
Location
Session Two Breakouts
Strand #1
Health: Mental & Physical Health
Strand #2
Heart: Social & Emotional Skills
Relevance
As a Licensed Professional Counselor, I often work with people whom struggle with their story. They struggle with story aspects including understanding, sharing/explaining, and ongoing processing. It is difficult to put into words the expanse of one’s situation or experience. Yet, helping others with this story processing is fundamental to helping. An avid writer myself, I find writing, particularly poem-making, essential to processing and expressing experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Through decades of counseling practice, I have found that therapeutic writing is a valuable counseling tool. Writing is a means to heal. Writing is a positive life skill. Writing can build bridges between people. Writing can enhance healthy mental health. Writing is a safe (and often fun) way to simply share one’s story. In my office, I have used writing in multiple ways from the initial building of rapport to helping someone disclose the deep pain of trauma and/or loss. Writing invites creativity and fosters an increased sense of self-awareness and discovery. Further, it is a skill for emotional expression that clients (children, youth, or adults) can build upon and develop. It can be a life-long means to process one’s story and perhaps share. Last, I can hear a client’s voice in their writing – that unique, inner voice that is often silenced or muffled by the noise of life. When I hear them, they will more likely invite me to help them. The value of therapeutic writing is supported by multiple approaches in counseling including cognitive behavioral therapy, positive psychology, and narrative therapy.
Brief Program Description
Therapeutic writing is an effective means to help youth tell their story. Writing is a venue for telling truth, increasing self-awareness, and fostering understanding. At the core, writing is an expression of the heart, and in this mode, writing possesses a healing quality. This interactive workshop will explore methods of therapeutic writing. This is going to be informative, applicable, and fun. Pick up your pen and join me.
Summary
A passionate and purposeful endeavor, therapeutic writing is an effective means to help youth tell their story. Therapeutic writing is a venue for helping clients with multiple aspects including telling truth, increasing self-awareness and discovery, fostering understanding, identifying and expressing emotions, and processing experiences. At the core, writing is an expression of the heart, and in this mode, writing possesses a healing quality. The poet William Wordsworth said, “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” In helping youth learn to fill their paper, we give them a way to share their heart and to perhaps see it anew. Further, it gives us, as helpers, a venue to come alongside them to work within their personal story. Through poem-making specifically, we can discover both passion and perceptions while enhancing the processing of experiences. “Poetry is a natural medicine; it is like a homeopathic tincture derived from the stuff of life itself ––your experience,” writes John Fox in Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. An interactive workshop, The Therapeutic Pen: Helping Youth Through Poem-Making and Expressive Writing will focus on the fundamental role of therapeutic writing as it relates to professionals in the field of children and youth. Participants will be able to identify and discuss the therapeutic benefits of writing and poem-making. Participants will enhance their story processing skills as they relate to helping youth. Participants will engage in various activities of therapeutic writing and be able to apply these activities in their field. Participants will build their repertoire of therapeutic writing techniques and approaches. This workshop is going to be informative, applicable, and fun. We each have a story to tell and a story worth writing. Participants will be glad they picked up their pen and joined this workshop.
Evidence
The value and practice of therapeutic writing is supported by multiple approaches in counseling including cognitive behavioral therapy, positive psychology, and narrative therapy. Therapeutic writing techniques are used to address multiple issues in counseling including stress management, story formation and processing, and emotional management. These techniques are widely used in the areas of both grief and loss work and trauma and loss work. Further they are used in the teaching of life skills including the areas of stress management, communication, and emotional management.
Learning Objective 1
Participants will identify and discuss the therapeutic benefits of writing and poem-making.
Learning Objective 2
Participants will enhance their story processing skills as it relates to counseling and/or helping youth.
Learning Objective 3
Participants will engage in various activities of therapeutic writing and be able to apply these activities in their field.
Keyword Descriptors
Therapeutic Writing, Counseling, Expressive Writing, Poem-Making, Positive Psychology, Youth, Poems, Self-Expression, Story Formation
Presentation Year
2022
Start Date
3-7-2022 1:00 PM
End Date
3-7-2022 2:15 PM
Recommended Citation
Crosby, Jo Y., "The Therapeutic Pen: Helping Youth Through Poem-Making and Expressive Writing" (2022). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 20.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2022/2022/20
The Therapeutic Pen: Helping Youth Through Poem-Making and Expressive Writing
Session Two Breakouts
Therapeutic writing is an effective means to help youth tell their story. Writing is a venue for telling truth, increasing self-awareness, and fostering understanding. At the core, writing is an expression of the heart, and in this mode, writing possesses a healing quality. This interactive workshop will explore methods of therapeutic writing. This is going to be informative, applicable, and fun. Pick up your pen and join me.
