Teaching Professional Writing to Family Therapists: Three Approaches

Abstract

The authors present three educational approaches designed to demystify the writing process and to support better writing skills among family therapists. One framework is an academic course in professional writing, another is a writing seminar for family therapy and physician trainees within a medical school setting, and the third is a 2‐hour continuing education writing workshop for family therapists. Each is replicable within a variety of settings.

Moving Beyond Nouns and Verbs

“…We also agree with other writing experts who suggest that writing is both a left brain and a right brain activity (Boice, 1990;Elbow, 1981;Piercy, Sprenkle & McDaniel, 1996). In these early stages of our group formation we talked mostly about the left brain activities such as editing, organization and or structuring of ideas.…”

“…Dr. Tubbs did her doctoral work in Marriage and Family Therapy at Purdue University and had the opportunity to participate in the graduate course described by Piercy, Sprenkle, and McDaniel (1996). She shared several of the exercises she learned from that experience and provided incentive for several of us to want to devote more time and attention to our own writing processes.…”

“…The first activity the group engaged in was to read the Piercy, Sprenkle, and McDaniel (1996) article. Several key ideas from that article supported the ideological foundation of our group.…”

“…While frequently there are JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 50 expectations about students' abilities to write well for activities such as qualifying examinations, papers for classes, and dissertations, rarely is there any formal instruction or attention given to the writing process itself. Inspired by Piercy, Sprenkle and McDaniel's (1996) article on teaching professional writing to family therapists, and motivated by a desire to ''get published'' so as to be competitive on the academic job market, the authors of this paper formed a writers' group. This article is the story of the evolutionary process of the group.…”

Submission Patterns to the Archival Journal of the Profession of MFT

“…We also strongly encourage experienced writers to mentor underrepresented persons in the writing process and to view such service as a major contribution to the future of the field. The ways in which professional writing skills can be taught in a variety of contexts is described by Piercy, McDaniel, and Sprenkle (1996).…”