Free peer support zooms for writers resume soon – watch this space.
Coaching and counselling for writers are both available for a special fee of £35/hour. Contact me for a chat about whether you need coaching, counselling, or a combination of both.
Writing does not cause misery; it is born of misery – Montaigne
As an overly dramatic teenager (weren’t we all?), I loved this quote. Over thirty years later I’m still wondering: is it true? Is the natural state of The Writer a melancholic one? And if so, why? And what can be done to ease the writer’s burden?
In my ‘other’ career I’m a psychotherapeutic counsellor and for several years now have been running Writing for Wellbeing workshops as one way of bringing these two interests together. In this space we use the enjoyment of words, and the process of writing, to connect with ourselves, to find moments of reflection, calm, and joy. It’s one of my absolute favourite things to do.
However, more and more I’ve been thinking about the other side of that coin – wellbeing for writers. It strikes me that as writers we are subject to particular pressures, and I would like to use my therapeutic skills to support in an area where I also have personal experience.
What problems do writers commonly experience?
Writers can be subject to a number of stresses and negative emotions, including but not limited to:
Self-doubt
Rejection
Feeling ‘blocked’
Job insecurity
Financial insecurity
Media and social media scrutiny
Vulnerability from publicly sharing part of oneself
Some writers report a sense of loss of control (especially post-publication)
Disappointment & professional envy
Guilt & shame
Alongside, of course, the everyday Stuff of Life – family pressures, bereavements, life changes, relationship difficulties, etc.
Existing sources of support
Lots of writers have supportive partners, family and friends. This is brilliant if you have it: the person who knows when to leave you alone, when to bring coffee, and most importantly when not to ask, ‘How’s the writing going?’ Sometimes though, non-writing loved ones don’t really ‘get’ the specific twists and anxieties of the writerly brain.
This is where peer support comes in. Writing groups and online communities can be fantastic in terms of being around other people who have the same itch, the same urge to ‘get it down on paper’, which commonly and inconveniently often goes hand in hand with the certainty that every word you do manage to write is garbage. It was German novelist and essayist Thomas Mann who famously said, “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
You can often get honest feedback on your work from a good peer group, if that’s what you’re looking for, as well as using them as a place to vent your woes.
Why seek therapy?
Of course, not all writers ‘need’ therapy, but here are some reasons you might benefit from one-to-one, confidential support. First of all, in therapy there’s no need to censor yourself; you won’t be judged. We’re typically a self-effacing lot, we writers, and even when one of us asks for help or expresses a particular struggle, I’ve often seen this caveated with “I know I shouldn’t complain about this but…” or “I’m sure other people have it much harder than me…”
We’re almost trained as writers to expect judgement. After all, we’re judged at every stage, by agents, editors and readers (or at least our work is judged, but it’s so hard not to feel it at a personal level). Fine, you might say, that’s part of the job; we’re putting work out there precisely to be received and reviewed. However, there’s another level, which is social or cultural, and perhaps applies to most people working in the arts: when we tell people what we do, we’re often met with either condescension (how nice that your hobby is your job!) or inappropriate questions about how much of a living we make from that, or how many copies we’ve sold, or why our books haven’t been made into films or TV series (in other words, why are we not more successful?) And if you are very successful, there’s often an assumption you must have been lucky!
The lovely thing about a dedicated, one-to-one space is that you won’t be judged for wanting to complain and maybe scream about all of this. Ditto the pressures of the industry, the horrors of being out on submission, the vagaries of professional relationships – and that’s before we even get to the work itself. The words that refuse to come, the plot that’s gone south, the characters who keep slipping out of your hands.
I trained as a person-centred counsellor and this means creating a safe space using the ‘core conditions’ of empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard (that’s the bit about not judging you, see above). In terms of empathy, of course a counsellor doesn’t have to have had personal experience of everything that all of their clients have been through. That would be impossible (and probably fairly terrible for them). Empathy isn’t about having been through it, it’s about being able to imagine it vividly and walk alongside you in it.
However, finding a therapist who’s also a writer, who ‘gets it’, just might give you a different space in which to fully and safely explore whatever’s going on for you.
So my plan is to ‘open my books’ specifically to writers – I’ll offer a free initial consult, to figure out what type of support is right for you. I’m a trained counsellor, coach / mentor, and hypnotherapist, and I also have a network of trusted fellow therapists I could refer you to if the match isn’t quite right.
I’ll be offering this work at a special concessionary rate, as I’m really passionate about helping fellow writers.
I’m also going to launch regular zoom ‘surgeries’ for writers to drop in and support each other – watch this space as the first one goes live very soon!
Contact me on 07725 404455 or joannabarnard76@gmail.com for more info.
Take care!
joannaibarnard 