Creative Disclosure — The Power of Expressive Writing

A decade ago, I sat in my Creative Writing seminar awaiting my fate. I’d submitted a piece of prose for feedback. For judgement. A piece filled with fascists, tyranny and revolution. A dystopian imitator. Five of us sat around a cluster of tables, piles of printed prose marked up with notes and annotations in front of us. Each week, three of us would submit work for feedback, enabling us to edit and improve until it was submitted for summary judgement and marking. I’d taken the plunge and this week; the hammer fell hard in the form of a question. My lecturer, a wonderfully funny and intelligent man, asked, ‘Why don’t you write about yourself?’

It was a question that haunted me for the remainder of my degree. My prose had either been fantastical or political, but never personal (unless you count a gay protagonist). My poetry opened to the personal by my third year, but my prose lacked that quality. The reason for it became clear in recent years. Fear. Fear of two things. Fear that my story, what I had experienced in life, would never be worthy for the page. The second was fear of my story. I didn’t want to look at my struggle, my trauma, let alone use it in my coursework. Instead, I hid. I escaped into the grotesque violence of Chris Ryan, the dystopian politics of Orwell or the fantasy of Tolkien. They became the writers I tried imitating.

I left Liverpool John Moores University with a 2.1 BA Honours Degree in Creative Writing and no writing I felt proud of. I have lost interest in many projects since then. Many unfinished manuscripts of my laptop. Notebooks filled with ideas, descriptions, characters and settings. The struggle to write a literary piece is constant.

In the summer of 2013, I risked it. I wrote my story. It took the form of a novella, split between 3rd and 1st person narration and was a fictional retelling of my coming out process. It was called The Journal. It goes from my secret teenage relationship with one of my close friends up to telling my parents about my sexuality. All 101 pages sit on my laptop and in a box in my desk cupboard. I haven’t touched it in years. And I recently realised that I didn’t have to. It had fulfilled its purpose. Through the process of writing it, I’d confronted and processed a lot of what had happened across those seven years. What I had done has a name. I learned it through my training to become a counsellor.

Expressive Writing

It is the act of facing up and exploring your issues through taking up the pen and disclosing them to the page. From an artistic or literary point of view, The Journal was likely subpar. Yet from a therapeutic standpoint, it was lifesaving.

I’ve previously disclosed my bouts of suicidal ideation, intent and having been on Citalopram. I’ve battled with anxiety and depression. Wrestled with low self-esteem and possibly a couple of addictions. No longer hiding it or stigmatised by it. I’m a counsellor, who sees a therapist to process his issues and to be a better version of himself, whilst married to the most wonderful man I could hope for. And the entire process started with writing.

Take a chance

There may be some of you who are thinking it was easy for me. I did a degree in Creative Writing. Have always wanted to be a writer. Have read loads of books about writing and have an intense internal desire to do it. I’m here to tell you one simple truth. Expressive writing doesn’t require any of that. I’m not speaking of literary merit or artistic expression. This is about Creative Disclosure.

In my profession, disclosing is the beginning of therapeutic change. It allows and aids in the processing of traumas, emotions and experiences. However, due to misunderstandings, ignorance and stigma, disclosing comes with risks. Risks of being judged, rejected or ignored. Comments of man up, get over it and other people have it worse. The stigma surrounding mental health and emotionally damaging experiences prevents people from disclosing the pain and trauma they have experienced. That prevents them from being able to healthily process what has happened to them.

Expressive Writing can be the tool to make a creative disclosure. Free of judgement and rejected because paper cannot reply. Take up the pen and wet the page with your truth.

Getting started

If you are sitting there thinking you might want to try expressive writing, but don’t know where to start, I’m here for you. The original study proving the benefits of expressive writing asked its participants to write about the most emotionally painful or traumatic events that had happened to them for twenty minutes a day for four days. You don’t need to do that (they had counsellors on hand to help). But we can take inspiration from that and you can try the following.
• Find a time and place where you won’t be disturbed.
• Write continuously for at least 20 minutes.
• Don’t worry about spelling or grammar.
• Write only for yourself.
• Write about something extremely personal and important to you.
• Deal only with events or situations you can handle now — that is, don’t write about trauma too soon after it has happened if it feels too overwhelming.
• Optional final step: After the four days of writing, try writing from the perspectives of other people involved in the event or situation.

The important thing to remember is that you are disclosing to the page. Studies have shown that it is the act of disclosing that has a beneficial effect on the individual. What happens once you have finished with the writing is up to you. I’ve tossed pages into the fire, published them on my since-dead blog, left them in dusty notebooks and written various creative pieces. The choice is yours. You can share them with others or lock them away for your eyes only. Remember, you are making a creative disclosure, not a public one.

• If you do want to speak to someone after taking part in expressive writing, then please find a counsellor or a trusted friend or family to talk to.*

Biography

Jeannie K. Wright & Ravi K. Thiara (2018): Breaking the silence and shame of sexual abuse: creative writing for therapeutic purposes (CWTP), Journal of Poetry Therapy, DOI:10.1080/08893675.2019.1548925

Cummings, J. A., Hayes, A. M., Saint, D. S., & Park, J. (2014). Expressive writing in psychotherapy: A tool to promote and track therapeutic change. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 45(5), 378–386. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037682

Adi Barak, Ronit D. Leichtentritt, Creative Writing after Traumatic Loss: Towards a Generative Writing Approach, The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 47, Issue 3, April 2017, Pages 936–954, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcw030

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Christine E. Ramsey-Wade, Heidi Williamson & Jane Meyrick (2020): Therapeutic Writing for Disordered Eating: A Systematic Review, Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, DOI: 10.1080/15401383.2020.1760988

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Bolton, G. (1999). The therapeutic potential of creative writing: Writing myself. London: Jessica Kingsley.

Bolton, G., & Latham, J. (2004). ‘Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome’: The therapeutic role of poetry writing. In G. Bolton, S. Howlett, C. Lago, & J. K. Wright (Eds.), Writing cures: An introductory handbook of writing in counselling and psychotherapy (pp. 106–122). Hove: Routledge.

Pennebaker, J. W., & Evans, J. (2014). Expressive writing: Words that heal. Washington: Idyll Arbor.

Wright, J. K. (2012). Write, read, share, reflect. Therapy Today, 23(9), 22–25.