Writing Therapy

Lesson 3: Writing and health

Section Three: Story

Lesson Three, Section Three. Other perspectives on healing.

One of the major routes to healing, at least theoretically, these days is seen ass being through healing the immune system. This is a very complex question these days and one that is on the cutting and growing edge of research. We could spend days literally in discussing how this works, but if you care to pursue it, a glance at the book by Sternberg in the bibliography should be helpful,

This is undoubtedly applicable to many disorders, but I hope I can explain the way it works through using one of the diseases I suffer from. Irritable Bowel Syndrome is one of what are called functional somatic syndromes. This class includes such things as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia etc. A characteristic of this group of problems is that they often can include a stress or psychological component, although not always. The role of the immune system appears to be that it is important in strengthening response to stress. If the immune system is strengthened by writing, which seems to be the case, this could be how writing affects illness through strengthening the immune system. Once again, I don’t want to go into the extensively here.

Other ways that writing can contribute to improved health include the opportunity it provides the writer to change focus or perspective or it might provide an opportunity to gain a spiritual perspective on illness. I think of writing primarily as an action or gesture as I said before, and DeSalvo provides a bridge from the scientific explanation through this perspective to the spiritual when she talks about writing as a ’fixer’ or ’sturdy ladder’ that we can use to ’fix’ (in the photographic sense) past thoughts and current feelings as we move on to healing. I’m sure here that I’ve made some jumps for you.

This I think brings us to the role of the spiritual in healing. The spiritual dimension, no matter how it is phrased, is what puts us in touch with nature and with our version of God. I happen to be in tune with Deena Metzger’s perspective here: According to her and to many others we all have a story, “To know a story is the beginning; to write it down, to shape and refine it are another story altogether.” (Writing for Your Life)

The dimension of story and ways to shape the feelings of your poems is what we will be working on in the next lesson.

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