Yesterday I met with my good friend Gail Kretchmer. Gail is an author, whose work has appeared in the New York Times and other publications, along her first work of fiction The Damnable Legacy of a Minister's Wife (2013). While Gail is a personal friend and someone who I hold in high regard, we have had many talks over lunch that have to do with trauma, suicide, traumatic events from our past, marriage and divorce, writing etc. Gail is what I would call a "safe person"--I talk to her freely without feeling judgment.
When I met up with Gail yesterday our conversation centred around her work with domestic violence survivors and cancer patients. Gail runs therapeutic writing workshops for these two demographics of women. Additionally she sometimes runs writing workshops at elderly living homes. She explained to me the process in which she led the class and what outcomes she had personally seen. What she shared with me was incredibly moving. She shared of women who had been abused being able to write about their experience OR write about something else that still envoked and painted the same feelings. Sometimes writing gave women the courage to think about leaving an abusive situation. In sharing their stories women were able to connect with one another and not feel alone. Some women were able to write, but then unable to share with the group. Every woman was different, with a different story to write or tell. Sometimes Gail gives the groups topics to write about, such as: summer, a road trip, children etc. Additionally she reviews a writing tool at the beginning of each group such as: metaphor, imagery etc. This helps the authors paint a more clear picture in their story or what they want to write about. These workshops intrigued me years ago when Gail first told me she did this, and after yesterday's meeting I'm a firm believer that this type of therapy can truly cross multicultural barriers.
A few weeks ago when I was meeting with NA staff I told them about a few of my suggestions I had for their therapy curriculum and practices.
Group therapy-a safe place where girls can talk through what is going in their life. This will probably be new to them as therapy is generally considered a very Western practice, but Alex, myself and the two staff on site in Thailand discussed how we could make this work in their context. We decided it would be very important as it would help build trust among the girls, allow for vulnerability and allow the staff to hear from the women. Because we don't believe the girls in this cultural context would just start talking on their own, we decided that perhaps asking a question at the beginning or mentioning a certain theme or word would be useful to get the conversations going.
Art therapy-This is very important to me. Art comes in all forms-drama, dance, poetry, creative writing etc. There have been many articles and items I've read that point to the success of art therapy when practiced and introduced with not only multi cultural patients, but also multicultural patients who have experienced trauma. During our meeting yesterday Gail introduced me to the National Association of Poetry Therapy. I'm going to do some digging around, as there is a lady who works for this organisation who uses poetry therapy with her immigrant patients and participants.
Creative Writing-Obviously this is part of art therapy, but this one is probably the most important to me. People feel empowered when they are free to share their story. That being said, sometimes shame, guilt, loss, sadness and embarrassment stands in the way of an audible voice, so I truly believe writing is key to healing. Gail introduced me to book titles that had to do with studies surrounding how individuals who write tend to have less mind and body stress, sleep better, are less anxious etc etc. (I'll have to read the books and report back). This started getting my brain turning to the direction of refugees and creative writing…more on that later as I think it will be a thesis starting point, but for now the plethora of knowledge from yesterday's meeting is a good starting point as I move from Field Work (that will always be a part of me) to thesis brainstorming and writing.
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