Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives

By Louise DeSalvo

Book Overview

Acclaimed author Louise DeSalvo draws on her own experience and the lives of others to examine the healing power of the writing process. In this landmark work, DeSalvo uses her twenty years as a teacher of writing to explore how the creative process can in fact be a restorative tool. She looks at the cutting-edge scientific research on the subject and presents dozens of anecdotes of famous writers and beginners in the field to illuminate her theory that writing can repair pain--and keep our demons at bay. In Writing as a Way of Healing, DeSalvo also develops a detailed program of exercises that shows writers and nonwriters alike how to "open up" to themselves through writing, write regularly in a relaxed way, and achieve a state of personal acceptance through writing. DeSalvo's techniques will provide a solid foundation for writers to benefit both physically and emotionally from telling their stories. DeSalvo writes with remarkable insight of a wide range of writers who have found that their work helped them to heal, including Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Kenzaburo Oe, Djuna Barnes, Peter Handke, Jamaica Kincaid, and Mark Doty. In these pages, we become familiar with writers' stories of healing: Isabel Allende deals with the anguish of sitting near her comatose daughter's bedside by beginning to compose a letter to her that eventually becomes the memoir Paula. Henry Miller, despondent when his wife, June, left him for another woman and contemplating suicide, instead works through the night on a story that details his life with June. This brief outline, written during a time of Miller's sharpest despair, serves as the inspiration for his greatest novels. DeSalvo illustrates how writers can find solace in their work if they ensure that they have a safe environment and a deliberate plan to approach the writing process. She also discusses what went wrong for writers "at risk" like Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, and she warns of the danger of using writing as a call for help instead of seeking help. According to DeSalvo, the way to responsibly write, to heal, is to make an effort to understand our experiences as we write about them. The healing power comes from the reflection on the pain we are living through. In this inspiring book, highly acclaimed author and teacher Louise DeSalvo reveals the healing power of writing. Based on her twenty years of research, DeSalvo show how anyone can use writing as a way to heal the emotional and physical wounds that are an inevitable part of life. She draws on the journals, diaries, letters, and works of dozens of famous writers and students of the craft to illustrate how people "change physically and psychologically when they work on projects that grow from a deep, authentic place." With insight and wit, she illuminates how writers, from Virginia Woolf to Henry Miller to Audre Lorde to Isabel Allende, have been transformed by the wiring process. Writing as a Way of Healing includes valuable advice and practical techniques to guide and inspire both experienced and beginning writers.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062515195
• ISBN13: 9780062515193
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Validation Personified

My daughter Debbi gave me this book for my birthday. I read Ms. DeSalvo's book when I was in the final stages of confronting the tragic suicide of my father that happened two days before my high school Senior Prom. For nearly fifty years after the day my entrepreneur father put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger his death gnawed at me. By facing what happened to me on that dreary spring day in Boston and trying to make sense of my Pop's state of mind on the day he died I was able to dig down deep into my soul and describe how I felt. I opened up my heart and was able to face a time only years had kept at bay. By writing about my heretofore-suppressed feelings I began to sob over the keyboard and took my first steps to understand why my father died. Desalvo's book validated my earlier conclusion that writing is truly a way of healing.

A motivating book on writing

No book can teach you to write, unless it is a formulaic recipe, cookbook sort of guide. Writing as a Way as Healing is exceptional because it has a particular point of view regarding the value of writing--specifically, exploring dis-ease through the written word. DeSalvo focuses on PROCESS, which is the simple idea that through writing one discovers how to write, and what particular story one is destined to write. This alone is invaluable advice since much writing is pre-packaged and pre-determined so that it is predictable. Both experienced and inexperienced writers can take this advice to heart since it encourages one not to feel as though writer's block is not having anything to write about, but rather not finding what one needs to write about. The book is supplemented by both references and quotes from well-known writers who have written about pain and illness, and includes empirical data about the healing power of writing. This is a good book. Period.

An incredible way to heal

I am a survivor of incest, so secrets have been a big part of my life. It is very hard to write when you are working so hard to keep secrets, but recently I went through a kind of personal awakening. Long held walls came crashing down. Finally I was not afraid to face my past, to tell my truth, and to use it in my creative work. My abilities expanded. Before I reached this point in my healing I was basically unable to write well because I was hiding so much. But, at the same time I desperately needed and wanted to face my past, to tell my story, and to write. This book addresses all of those needs. As a beginner to writing this book has been extremely helpful. This book gave me the permission I needed to simply tell my story. That was a big step for me. Of all the work I have done to heal from my abusive past nothing has moved me forward as fast as the advice in this book has. It is incredibly healing to be able to coherently tell the details of your life in a way that speaks the truth, is understood by others, and to watch the pain you went through be transformed into a work of art. Even if you never publish it, the process is such a deep way of healing and learning to share your story.

An incredible way to heal

Recently I went through a personal awakening. I witnessed long held walls come crashing down in my mind. When the walls fell I re-gained access to entire portions of who I am. Finally I was not afraid to face my past, to tell my truth, and to use it in my creative work. My abilities expanded. Before I reached this point in my healing I was basically unable to write. I am a survivor of incest, so secrets have been a big part of my life. It is very hard to write when you are working so hard to keep secrets, especially when you are also trying to keep them from yourself. But, at the same time I desperately needed and wanted to face my past, to tell my story, and to write. This book addresses all of those needs. As a beginner to writing this book has been extremely helpful. This book gave me the permission I needed to simply tell my story, and not to try and hide it behind fancy writing forms, or fictional stories. That was a big step for me. Of all the work I have done to heal from my abusive past nothing has moved me forward as fast as the advice in this book has. It is incredibly healing to be able to coherently tell the details of your life in a way that speaks the truth, is understood by others, and to watch the pain you went through be transformed into a work of art.