Writing As Wellbeing

My little manifesto

I gave a workshop on ‘Writing for wellbeing: a trauma informed approach’ at the Units United Conference on Friday. That is the national conference for teachers in hospital settings, including secure units. They educate young people at the most vulnerable moments of their lives. To say I felt honoured and humbled in being there is an understatement. They were also teachers on a half-term break, who were definitely going to have some fun. Which we did. And even though I LOATHE pub quizzes, I did take part in the quiz, and it wasn’t actually so bad.

I ended up at this conference because one of the organisers attended an Offer Holder Day at Lancaster University, where as a lecturer in creative writing I talked about my research on writing for wellbeing for survivors of religious trauma. Seconds after I finished, he had dashed over to invite me to speak at Units United.

I shared the two main theories of how writing can support wellbeing: ‘the transformation through writing’ model and the ‘self-directed neuroplasticity’ model, as well as how I use grounding techniques, drawing on trauma theory, to create workshops that are as safe as possible. I like to know how things work, the theory and the application of the theory in the real world. My Substack will explore these approaches, as well as the writing prompts I use.

At the end of the workshop, a teacher commented that she’d like to attend workshops for herself. This chimes with what I want to do in the future: develop workshops and resources for carers, teachers: anyone who gives to others.

On the way home from the conference, shattered and succumbing to a nasty cold

The weekend made me realise that I want to share this work with a wider audience, to develop a community of writers of both practitioners and also, most importantly, of people who would benefit from this type of writing.

So, this regular newsletter will be useful to a wide range of readers, whether you have experienced trauma, religious trauma, or you are feeling burnt out from work or caring roles, or you want to create space in your writing to develop self-understanding, self-awareness and enhance wellbeing.

How we understand ourselves and our emotions is the groundwork for all writing and, actually, a crucial part of making sense of our place in the world. Which is why I call this Substack ‘writing as wellbeing’, and hope this will become a space for mutual growth and support through writing.

In the meantime, if there’s anything that you’d like me and our community to explore, do let me know in the comments.

See you next time!

Zoe xx