Practitioner Certificate Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (CWTP) for Therapists
10 day course for counsellors and therapists wishing to learn about creative writing for therapeutic purposes (CWTP). Learn techniques for personal development and professional applications. Course on Fridays and Saturdays from Feb to June.
We are at capacity for this course, any new dates will be advertised here.
For enquiries please email cathy.simeon@metanoia.ac.uk
The Practitioner Certificate for therapists and counsellors is a 10-day course in five 2-day blocks (Fridays and Saturdays), from February to June.
The course provides students with understanding of Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes and equips them to employ the techniques using a range of resources.
OVERVIEW
This Practitioner Certificate offers qualified therapists and senior trainees the opportunity to learn about principles, practice and applications of Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (CWTP). All are welcome – you do not have to have done much creative writing before, only be willing to participate.
We will look at applications and ways of working with writing and creativity, and how these might contribute to therapists’ existing practice, or in their own creative and reflective process and self-care.
The 10 days (5 x 2 days on Fridays and Saturdays) provide a lively and engaging introduction to CWTP theory and practice. Highly experienced tutors combine experiential learning with taught elements and carefully-chosen reading. You will be guided through creative writing and reflection exercises in a supportive and accessible way that is designed to enable all who wish to learn more about this field to participate and develop as practitioners. There will be a reading list and tasks set before and between sessions.
WHERE?
This course is taught online on Zoom
WHO IS THE COURSE FOR?
The course is suitable for qualified therapists and senior trainees who are interested in learning about Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes and its applications. There will be creative writing activities for students in each learning day as part of the experiential learning.
COURSE DATES
FACILITATORS (for bios see below)
Fiona Hamilton, Nigel Gibbons, Graham Hartill, Foluke Taylor, Claire Williamson
FURTHER INFORMATION & ENROLMENT
For further information about joining the Practitioner Certificate in CWTP please complete the form at the bottom of this page to be informed when further details are released alternatively you can email Cathy Simeon at cathy.simeon@metanoia.ac.uk
We are at capacity for this course and are not accepting applications at present, any new dates will be advertised here.
COURSE OUTLINE
Each workshop includes: writing activities, discussion, theory input, and focus on one CWTP area in relation to therapists’ practice with clients, in supervision, or with themselves for self-support. There will be tasks and reading to do in between sessions.
Day 1 Introduction to Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes
The first day is an introduction to Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (CWTP). Students will identify their learning objectives and find out how this field has evolved. There are examples of applications in different settings, together with some initial theory and research into its effects and uses. We will consider how CWTP overlaps and differs from ‘talking therapies’, taking a look at writing approaches used within therapeutic practices, including letter writing, stories, free writing, and poetry. We will consider best practice when establishing a CWTP group, with a gentle lead-in to our initial writing activities and reflection on them.
Day 2 Imagining Other-Wise: Writing Form & Therapeutic Possibility
Using CWTP we can create space to think ‘otherwise’, to know differently, and to apply an understanding of ‘therapeutic’ across personal, social and ecological contexts, attending to physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and transpersonal experience. We will try out different forms of writing and see how they can be used to attend to these different registers of therapeutic. We will experiment with what different forms offer in terms of containment and freedom for individual voice and issues of power, privilege and responsibility.
Day 3 Ways of Working with CWTP in the Counselling Room
Beginning with Carl Rogers’ ideas on creativity the day will explore how to introduce CWTP activities into the individual space of the counselling room. Issues around directivity/non-directivity will be considered, and the use of writing as a ‘third something’ in the room. Practical examples will include narrative approaches such as Dan McAdam’s Stories We Live By and creative approaches such as Lucia Capacchione’s and Natalie Rogers’ work.
Day 4
Language, Intimacy and Distance
CWTP involves spending time with language and attending carefully to nuances of voice, register, tone, word choice or word avoidance. These all play a part in the therapist’s practice and by paying attention to chosen expressions as well as the language of written texts such as poems we are able to make conscious choices about the forms of expression we use, and to enhance our ability to tune in to others’. We will look at varieties of language, genre writing and structured poetic form. We will explore how to choose a form with a client to assist with an issue.
Day 5 Working with Characters and Voices
Creative writing can facilitate access to and expression of different facets of self. By approaching the facets ‘slant’ through characters and voices there is the opportunity for both playful and serious consideration of self and identity, and of our ways of relating to others and environments. We will draw on theory and examples demonstrated by practitioners in different settings. These methods can be applied to is- sues and questions around identity such as gender and ethnicity.
Day 6 Working with Metaphor and Myth
Metaphor is embedded in our everyday language and can enable communication of complex multi- levelled experience. Personal and shared myths are used to relate and explain experience and identities. We will look at theory from key texts to highlight ways of working with metaphor and myth, and to inspire students’ writing and reflection. Writing activities will include ‘finding your metaphors’ and ‘stories we live by’.
Day 7 A Palette of CWTP Resources
This day is devoted to expanding on our discoveries and homing in on some of the variety of CWTP methods and approaches that can be employed for particular clients and groups. We will explore how CWTP holds possibility for engaging our different bodies and identities, and our various locations of experience. As well as written and spoken word, CWTP also draws on objects, pictures, music, movement, natural and urban environments, and other materials. Students will try out activities that create space in which possibilities for being — and being with being — are encouraged. They will consider what kinds of activities fit particular situations and also devise their own activity bearing in mind ethics and best practice.
Day 8 Focusing, Mindfulness and the Writing Space
The day will include sessions on process approaches in CWTP with particular attention to Focus- ing and Mindfulness. We will do some close observation and contemplative writing activities. We will also explore how creative approaches can help us to understand social graces, ‘filters’ and therapist roles in fresh ways. We will look at a transference issue as part of thinking about how CWTP can aid therapists with self -care and preparation and completion of work with clients.
Day 9 Getting Into Practice
Our final two days of the Practitioner Certificate course focus on students designing and facilitating CWTP sessions and receiving feedback from peers and tutors. Having considered how they wish to apply their knowledge in individual and/or group work with clients, students prepare sessions drawing on their own interests and aims. We look at what helps facilitators prepare and deliver effective sessions. Through experiencing others’ CWTP work and input from tutors, students further develop their understanding of the range of CWTP activities that can be applied for particular needs. Discussion and reflection identifies processes that consolidate learning on the course.
Day 10 Demonstrating Competence
Students have a final opportunity on the course to deliver a CWTP activity, reflect on their practice, and assess their current competence in the field drawing on their own, tutors’ and peers’ input. There will be time to consider how CWTP fits within their own therapy practice and to outline their own ways forward. The group creates a closing activity that embodies and represents understandings of CWTP approaches as we complete the Practitioner Certificate taught course.