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What I Never Wanted to Tell You: Therapeutic Letter Writing in Cultural Context

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Abstract

Therapeutic letter writing has been viewed by psychologists as a powerful form of creative writing in health care settings. I explore the cultural contexts that have aided its popularization to shed fresh light on debates about its psychological function and efficacy. I draw on the sociologist Frank Furedi’s analysis of ‘therapy culture’ to argue that contemporary ideologies of the vulnerable self have stimulated this practice, particularly in the form of letters written not-to-be-sent. I conclude by considering models of developmental letter writing that attempt to challenge these ideologies, including narrative therapists’ provocative method of corresponding with clients.

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Notes

  1. Gillie Bolton, The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing: Writing Myself (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1999), 54–55.

  2. I thank Gillie Bolton for permission to quote this and the following letter, and also Dave Dight himself, without whom, evidently, I could not have written this paper. I also thank the narrative therapist Mark Hayward and theorist Celia Hunt for their interest.

  3. Gillie Bolton, Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development (London: Paul Chapman, 2001).

  4. Celia Hunt, Therapeutic Dimensions of Autobiography in Creative Writing (London; Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2000), Celia Hunt and Fiona Sampson, Writing: Self and Reflexivity, 3 rd ed. (Houndmills; New York: Palgrave, 2006).

  5. Michael White and David Epston, Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends (New York: Norton, 1990).

  6. M.S. Torem, “Therapeutic Writing as a Form of Ego-State Therapy,” American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 35, no. 4 (1993).

  7. Yvonne M. Dolan, Resolving Sexual Abuse: Solution-Focused Therapy and Ericksonian Hypnosis for Adult Survivors (New York: Norton, 1991).

  8. Alfred Lange, “Using Writing Assignments with Families Managing Legacies of Extreme Traumas,” Journal of Family Therapy 18, no. 4 (1996).

  9. James W. Pennebaker, M. Colder, and L. R. Sharp, “Accelerating the Coping Process,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58, no. 3 (1990).

  10. Bolton, The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing: Writing Myself, 55–58.

  11. Alice Glarden Brand, “The Uses of Writing in Psychotherapy,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 19, no. 4 (1979).

  12. Leonard Pearson et al., The Use of Written Communications in Psychotherapy (Springfield, Ill.: C. C. Thomas, 1965).

  13. Murray Bowen, “Toward the Differentiation of a Self in One’s Own Family,” in Family Interaction; a Dialogue between Family Researchers and Family Therapists, ed. James L. Framo and Pennsylvania. Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute Philadelphia. (New York: Springer Pub. Co., 1972).

  14. Jeannie Wright and Man Cheung Chung, “Mastery or Mystery? Therapeutic Writing: A Review of the Literature,” British Journal of Guidance & Counselling 29, no. 3 (2001).

  15. Celia Hunt, “Recovery, Healing and Life Writing,” in The Encyclopedia of Life Writing, ed. Margaretta Jolly (London: Routledge, 2001).

  16. Mark Knight, “Handbooks and Guides,” in The Encyclopedia of Life Writing, ed. Margaretta Jolly (London: Routledge, 2001), Ira Progoff and Ira Progoff, At a Journal Workshop: Writing to Access the Power of the Unconscious and Evoke Creative Ability, Inner Workbook (Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1992), Tristine Rainer, The New Diary: How to Use a Journal for Self-Guidance and Expanded Creativity (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1978).

  17. John Suler, “Equest: Case Study of a Comprehensive Online Program for Self-Study and Personal Growth,” CyberPsychology and Behavior 8, no. 4 (2005).

  18. Clare Brant, “Devouring Time Finds Paper Toughish: What’s Happened to Handwritten Letters in the Twenty-First Century?” Auto/biography Studies 21, no. 1 (2006).

  19. Peter Berger, “Towards a Sociological Understanding of Psychoanalysis,” Social Research 32, no. 1 (1965), Tana Dineen, Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry Is Doing to People (Montréal, Buffalo, N.Y.: R. Davies, 1996), Christopher Lasch, The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1984), Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud; with a New Preface, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).

  20. Frank Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age (London: Routledge, 2004), 39.

  21. See <http://www.heartfeltmatters.com/>

  22. Deborah Berger, Dear Mom: Women’s Letters of Love, Loss, and Longing (Victoria, B.C.: Trafford, 2001).See also < http://www.dearmomletters.com/>

  23. Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, 2.

  24. Ibid., 3.

  25. Ibid., 68.

  26. See <http://www.soulfulliving.com/peaceuponpage.htm>

  27. Eldonna Bouton, Loose Ends: A Journaling Tool for Typing up the Incomplete Details of Your Life and Heart (San Luis Obispo: Whole Heart Publications, 2000).

  28. Ilene Segalove, Unwritten Letters: Letter Writing as a Way to Resolve the Unfinished Business of Your Life (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Pub., 1998).

  29. See <http://www.wholefamily.com/realletters/index.html>

  30. Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, 104.

  31. Ibid., 7.

  32. Saint Paul quoted in Galatians 5:17

  33. Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, 34.

  34. Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (London: Routledge, 2003).

  35. Bolton, The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing: Writing Myself, 55.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Ibid.

  38. B.A. Esterling et al., “Emotional Disclosure through Writing or Speaking Modulates Latent Epstein-Barr Virus Reactivation,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 62, no. 1 (1994), B.A. Esterling et al., “Empirical Foundations for Writing in Prevention and Psychotherapy: Mental and Physical Health Outcomes,” Clinical Psychology Review 19, no. 1 (1999), Catherine E. Mosher and Sharon Danoff-Burg, “Health Effects of Expressive Letter Writing,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 25, no. 10 (2006), Mirjam Schoutrop et al., “Structured Writing and Processing Major Stressful Events: A Controlled Trial,” Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 71, no. 3 (2002), J.M. Smyth et al., “Effects of Writing About Stressful Experiences on Symptom Reduction in Patients with Asthma or Rheumatoid Arthritis,” Journal of American Medical Association 281, no. 14 (1999).

  39. Margaretta Jolly and Liz Stanley, “Letters as/Not a Genre,” LifeWriting (2006).

  40. White and Epston, Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, 16.

  41. Ibid., 38.

  42. Ibid., 65–66.

  43. Ibid., 110.

  44. Ibid., 125–26.

  45. Michael White, Maps of Narrative Practice (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), 179.

  46. Jeremy Couper and Edwin Harari, “Use of the Psychiatric Consultation Letter as a Therapeutic Tool,” Australasian Psychiatry 12, no. 4 (2004), Derek Steinberg, Letters from the Clinic: Letter Writing in Clinical Practice for Mental Health Professionals (London; Philadelphia: Routledge, 2000). See the British Department of Health’s recent initiative to copy patients in on clinicians’ letters: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Managingyourorganisation/PatientAndPublicinvolvement/Copyingletterstopatients/index.htm

  47. Steinberg, Letters from the Clinic: Letter Writing in Clinical Practice for Mental Health Professionals.

  48. Ibid., 114.

  49. Ibid., 119.

  50. White, Maps of Narrative Practice, 27.

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  1. Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research, University of Sussex, c/o Mantell Building, Falmer, BN1 9RH, UK

    Margaretta Jolly

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  1. Margaretta Jolly
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Jolly, M. What I Never Wanted to Tell You: Therapeutic Letter Writing in Cultural Context. J Med Humanit 32, 47–59 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-010-9127-z

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