Writing Your Self: Transforming Personal Material

Abstract

We wrote this book because of our conviction that everyone has people, events, thoughts, feelings ‘buried inside’ and that there are ways of bringing these to the surface so that they can be examined, shaped and perhaps offered to others. In Writing Your Selfwe explore this concept in depth with a wide variety of examples from known and unknown writers illustrating the achieve-ments possible in this area. Our text also incorporates a number of frank and insightful accounts by writers of what personal writing means to them. We believe that some of the most powerful literature is derived directly from experience. We have designed the book to be at the same time a resource book for personal use, and a convincing demonstration of the potency of ther-apeutic writing as a tool for self-development.