The introduction sets the tone of the book: inspirational and entrepreneurial. It advises how a person could become a creative writing therapist/coach and memory enhancement counselor. The idea is that the examples presented in the book can be self-directed (for personal growth) or business oriented: how to make money teaching individuals, running workshops and producing books for clients which use the techniques she will offer throughout the volume. Her writing style is engaged and assertive; the goal is to enable the reader to imagine their own work, on their own or as part of a larger therapeutic and medical team (including expressive arts therapists) in using creative writing as a tool and technique in a variety of settings. The introduction also focuses on techniques: such as combining creative writing while listening to ‘upbeat' ethnic music. Different music can elicit different kinds of imaginative writing. The mix of how-to information, other resources (print and web-based) and opinion on how to best approach writing, engaging oneself or others in writing various kinds of material: eulogies, memoirs, oral history, chapbook making, etc. are geared to self-growth, healing, and the verities of the commercial marketplace, from magazine periodical sale to self-publishing, to writing therapy book production for clients as a kind of cottage industry.
[...] It would be useful to understand the possible causes, the specific history, and to help in writing therapy to change behaviors through mutually understanding how to slow down or stop impulses and behavioral triggers when they emerge. A writing journal, a life-story, working through some element of the pain, frustration, sadness, isolation, perfectionism whatever it might be, working with her through creative therapeutic writing might involve a mixture of positive, inspirational story telling but this would possibly emerge out of deep, long-worked through insights and understanding of life-history coping mechanisms as much as only ‘inspirational' solutions. [...]
[...] Some of this could be enjoyable such as contemplating how to turn a short prose piece into an Internet webcast in other words showing how language and content can be shaped differently for a variety of different presentational styles and mediums. Chapter 12 Chapter 12 is a very short chapter on another way for a writer-publisher to make money; to contract out her services to larger publishers or start an in-house publishing and packaging business. This is really a little how-to chapter for creating an in-your-home cottage industry publishing and subcontracting business related to the book industry. [...]
[...] Why she is suggesting that a would-be screenwriter contact an aspiring Hollywood “starlet” for tips on how to meet studio producers, caused my eye-brows to raise. In one way it is a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy; in another, again, there is growing confusion about how what she is writing about segues with writing or other expressive arts therapies. Chapter 8 Chapter 8 continues to focus on how a writer can plug their material using available on-line resources, such as already existing websites, or creation of personal home page, or web page where one could sponsor or promote other emerging writers. [...]
[...] On the downside, in this chapter there is interwoven throughout what can be categorized as a very pep-rally tone towards creative writing therapy as a possible money making venture: creating book and multi media materials for a variety of clients, where how much money you can make seems to take over from or detract from the holistic, sensitive elements of what she is alluding to or directly discussing as it relates to a professional practice Thus, again this book is kind of diffuse in its focus, as the introduction suggests it shall be, with a combination of very useful information and material interspersed with other elements which are of less interest to a working therapist, revealing in the book a mix of serious issues and possibilities of how writing-therapy can be used in one's practice, and infomercial style pitching of business venture ideas for making money using writing-therapy techniques that seem to lie quite outside the actual purview of a therapist's practice. [...]
[...] It is basically about how to self-publish how-to books on a variety of subjects which may be of use to various demographics. She offers explicit directions in terms of what one should write about, how many pages the book should be, type of font to be used, how to format pages and so on. This could be of use to a professional therapist who wants to put out a small book on working methods to give to clients, sell at conferences and so on. [...]
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