Frequently Asked Questions

What is writing therapy?

Writing therapy is a combination of therapeutic creative writing, journaling, poetry writing and other self-expressive practices to gain therapeutic benefits. Therapeutic writing is such an accessible means of self-expression that anyone can do—and, don’t worry, you don’t have to be a good writer. Just merely writing down words, thoughts and feelings can help you organize them and give you fresh perspective. It can also help you identify, understand and release your thoughts and emotions, especially ones that may not be helping you reach your goals and move forward in your life.

What are the benefits of therapeutic writing?

The benefits of therapeutic writing are a greater understanding of the beliefs and stories that have shaped your life and hold you back from achieving goals and making desired changes. Writing therapy can help you identify and overcome stories, thinking and beliefs that hold you back or limit your potential. These limiting stories and beliefs that you tell yourself leave you feeling “stuck.” You may feel like you want to make a change in an area of your life but you don’t know quite how to move forward. You may feel the need/desire to express yourself, to identify stories you tell yourself that may not be true and are no longer serving you. They may also be holding you back from reaching your goal/making a change. You may beat yourself up about failures. You may have a lot of negative self-talk. You may believe stories that people told you about yourself that aren’t true. You may not prioritize yourself or love yourself or believe that you deserve to achieve your goals. Therapeutic writing can help with all of these scenarios.

What is The Transformative Life Program? Who will benefit?

The Transformative Life Program is a therapeutic writing course that will help you rewrite your narrative to achieve transformation and unlock your true potential to make the changes you want to make. This writing therapy program is for women who feel they may have been living according to someone else’s story, or according to a narrative that isn’t the one they want to continue following. The program is for women who want to make a change in their lives but aren’t sure how to do it, and are looking for guidance and a way to express themselves to inspire them to take that next step. This therapeutic writing program also is for any woman who wants to use writing as a means of self-examination and reflection to learn more about how she can live more authentically and in line with the story she wants to write about herself and her life.

What will I be doing in The Transformative Life Program? What will I experience?

For the most part, you will be telling your story by writing creatively in various forms. Then together we will discuss and make space for the thoughts, emotions and ideas that come out in these writings. I will give you the therapeutic writing prompts to get you going; all you have to do is not think too hard about it and put the pen to paper. I will be there to guide you and help you work through what you’ve written to help you understand how it can help you achieve the change you are seeking. We will be using creative writing therapy, journal writing therapy, poetry therapy and other practices during this process.

What do I do each session with you? What do I do each week?

Each week we will discuss an aspect of life that is important to be working effectively and in balance to help you achieve your goal and empower you to reach your full potential. I will provide you with a writing therapy prompt so you can write your story as related to that aspect, so I can learn about the stories or beliefs that exist in your life currently. We will then discuss what you have expressed and how it relates to you achieving your goal. I will also provide you with homework, such as creative writing prompts, journal writing prompts, therapeutic storytelling assignments or other related practices to deepen the experience of what we have discovered and identified that week.

What are your methods or techniques?

My technique of therapeutic writing is a combination of using writing prompts and other types of creative writing and therapeutic writing to help inspire you to write your own story and express yourself in writing. I have a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and have completed a course of study in Poetry Therapy with The Creative Righting Center in Brooklyn, New York. I also have completed coursework at the Therapeutic Writing Institute. I have a wealth of professional experience (check out the About Me page!) as well as life experience (check out the My Writing page!) that also inform my work. There is no official name for the methods I am using; it is a proprietary program that I have created based on my vast academic, therapeutic and life experience for Mermaid Mentoring called The Transformative Life: Rewriting your story to live more authentically, joyfully and with gratitude.