Abstract

Write Yourself is the ideal introduction to how to facilitate groups and individuals in finding inspiration for their creative personal writing voices. This book explains how and why writing is such an illuminative, healing, and cathartic process, and provides many practical exercises that encourage the exploration of emotions, memories and experiences. Chapters cover the use of writing with a variety of client groups, including those made up of people suffering from depression, anxiety or health problems, and advice is given both on running and participating in successful writing groups.

This book will be an invaluable resource for professionals working across the health, social care and caring professions, arts therapists and for everyone interested in the therapeutic qualities of creative writing.

Writing becomes therapeutic to the extent that it is a way of communicating with the self, and this is where |I believe the book is of particular interest to the counselling profession.
Therapy Today
Persuading your inner person to tell you your true name is the most intricate and fateful of all quests - but even to venture a little way on it can make your life richly creative. Gillie Bolton's Write Yourself is an essential field guide to all of the territory.
Les Murray, Poet
In her latest book, Write Yourself, Bolton offers ways into expressive writing, information on writing with specific groups, and detailed advice on how to facilitate writing groups. It is a handbook for anyone interested in the field of creative writing and personal development, which Bolton believes should be an "open and less rule bound field". Nurses, doctors, therapists and social workers are named as potentially "excellent facilitators". It is this feeling of generosity and inclusiveness which infuses the book and Bolton's work.
Lapidus Journal
Write Yourself is a powerful handbook that is the culmination of Gillie Bolton's sustained scholarship and wisdom focusing on therapeutic creative writing for reflective self-insight. Her ideas and practical knowledge provide uplifting support for writing group facilitators, as well as individuals, in exploring practical approaches to expressive writing. This work is an important and lasting contribution to the field.
John D. Engel, Professor Emeritus of Behavioral Sciences, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Gillie Bolton has worked in reflective and therapeutic writing for personal and professional development for twenty-five years, and has written and edited five books, one of which is now in its third edition. A grandmother of three, she lives in Bloomsbury, London, and Hope Valley, Derbyshire.
Gillie Bolton's latest book is filled with wonderful and moving insights that speak to the value of creative writing. It is inspiring, challenging and also practical. All those who read it can learn from it how to help themselves and others - trust in the method and give it a try!
Amanda Howe, FRCGP, Professor of Primary Care, University of East Anglia, Medical School
Write Yourself is the ideal introduction to how to facilitate groups and individuals in finding inspiration for their creative personal writing voices. This book explains how and why writing is such an illuminative, healing, and cathartic process, and provides many practical exercises that encourage the exploration of emotions, memories and experiences... Clearly exemplified, engaging and accessible, the series is appropriate for therapeutic, healthcare, or creative writing practitioners and facilitators, and for individual writers or courses.
Tilt Magazine