‘It doesn’t seem to matter what you write, it is the process of putting thoughts down in writing that does you good. It certainly doesn’t matter how ‘well’ you feel you can write. When you write for your wellbeing you are writing just for you – so don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar and all that.’- Carol Ross, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘Just words on a page…can help us learn things about our lives, memories, thoughts, feelings and fears we didn’t know before, or that we sort of knew and had forgotten, or that we knew only too well and never wanted to think about.’- Gillie Bolton, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘Sometimes…we need to express ups and downs far more than others have time or patience to listen to. Paper and pen are endlessly patient, present, and never judge.’ - Gillie Bolton, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘Sometimes no matter how many times a difficult experience is revisited in your head it is not resolved- writing somehow salves the pain; there is something about the creative act of writing, the recording of a special memory or profound moment on the page that feels helpful.’- Anne Taylor, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘…writing and naming emotions have a calming effect on the brain. Writing reduces activity in the amygdala…the part of the brain connected with anxiety and distress, that drives our ‘Flight and Fight’ behaviours. Writing…increases activity in the pre-frontal cortex, the mind’s regulator, thus calming mental activity and emotions.’- Lisa Rossetti, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘With writing, you can edit and re-draft as many times as you like to make your writing say exactly what you want it to.’- Katie Metcalfe, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘A journal is a journey, a way of finding a voice.’- Philips, Penman & Linnington (1999)
‘When we just let ourselves write, we get it right.’- Julia Cameron (2000)
‘Writing itself is therapeutic, but writing and sharing writing in a supportive group adds another dimension.’- Carol Ross, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘Through the arts we can know ourselves on a much deeper level than in everyday life.’- Marilyn Messenger, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘…one fundamental use for story-sharing: bearing witness to existence.’- Elizabeth Gates, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘…writing can hep you to take control of your own life, if you just let it.’ - Katie Metcalfe, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘Story cannot cure serious illness or injury but it can promote wellbeing and there can be therapeutic benefits in this.’ - Elizabeth Gates, Words for Wellbeing (2012)
‘(Poetry is) lying your way to the truth’- Matthew Sweeney
‘One sheds one’s sickness in books…repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be master of them.’- DH Lawrence
‘By putting into words I can make it whole; this way it has lost the power to hurt me.’ – Virginia Woolf
‘Writers betray themselves. The writing hand can know things that the writing mind would rather not think.’- Patricia Duncker, Write Yourself: Creative Writing and Personal Development (2011)
‘…tell your story because your story will heal you and heal someone else. Our lives are filled with stories, drama, surprises and mysteries that make a wonderful and interesting journey.’- Yvonne Cass, Write Yourself: Creative Writing and Personal Development (2011)
‘Yet writing, we have to believe, is the way to lay those ghosts, imprison them in a piece of work, not leave them running wild inside the head. And by turning an experience into a coherent story, by making it make sense to others, we also make it make sense to ourselves.’- Sheila Hayman, Write Yourself: Creative Writing and Personal Development (2011)
‘Maybe all poetry…is a revealing of something that the writer doesn’t actually want to say, but desperately needs to communicate, to be delivered of.’ – Ted Hughes
‘Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome.’- Adrienne Rich, Someone is Writing a Poem (2010)
‘A poem is more than a simple expression of feelings, more than what ‘really’ happened.’- The Open University, What is Poetry (2016)