“Writing is a way of saying things I can’t say”—therapeutic creative writing: a qualitative study of its value to people with cancer cared for in cancer and palliative healthcare

Abstract

This paper reports on a therapeutic creative writing project undertaken at King's College London and University College Hospital London, funded by Arts Council England. The project sought to increase understanding of experiences of personal expressive and explorative writing by cancer patients receiving palliative care. Narrative methods were used to analyse and interpret patients' written and oral (transcripts of semistructured interviews) responses, researchers' field notes and written responses of staff. These indicated that writing: (1) facilitated patients' ability and opportunity to discover what they thought, felt, remembered; (2) enhanced their awareness of, and ability to express, issues to which focused attention needed to be paid; and (3) offered satisfaction and fulfilment of creative expression and exploration and the production of writings which to them and close others were vital. Illuminatively drawing upon patients' writings and responses, this paper is underpinned by discussion of therapeutic writing and its relationship to creative writing, with reference to a range of previous research.

Arts Engagement Facilitated by Artists With Individuals With Life-limiting Illness: An Integrative Review of the Literature

“…The eight studies included in the review represented visual, literary, and performing arts engagement facilitated by artists with patients in hospitals, residential hospice, and day hospice settings in England, the United States, France, and Canada. [19][20][48][49][50][51][52][53] Design, methods, measures, participants, interventions, and overall quality varied widely among the studies. Table 3 summarizes key study characteristics: 1) participants and settings, 2) interventions and measures, 3) outcomes, and 4) challenges.…”

Writing Victimhood

“…1 2021 in this tradition, it is not important what people write about, but rather how they use writing to see the world in new ways. Others accredit the therapeutic potentials to fi nding new ways of refl ecting on one's self and creating meaningful life narratives (Bolton, 2008;McNichol, 2016;Pennebaker, 1990); within this tradition, people are encouraged to write about themselves, and what they write is just as important as how they do it. Despite their differences, practitioners generally agree that the benefi ts of writing come from being confronted with something new and different, whether this is aesthetic forms and world-views or new perspectives on one's own story and thoughts.…”

Defying shame

“…In her recommendations, therapeutic writing must move from describing the traumatic event to refl ecting on it and eventually reframing it in a way that is easier to live with. Additionally, the therapeutic writing approach increases the opportunities to develop a process that is valuable to the participants (Bolton, 2008;Bolton, Field, & Th ompson, 2006;Pennebaker, 2000;Steenberg, 2013;Steenberg & Ladegaard, 2017;Wright, 2009). • Writing as a creative (Gauntlett, 2007;Gauntlett & Holzwarth, 2006) or practicebased (Hope, 2016) research method involves traditions that are based on the idea that creative expression gives access to diff erent aspects of an experience and can therefore facilitate alternative knowledge production.…”