Leading Others in Writing for Health

By John F. Evans, MAT, MA, EdD and Karen Jooste, MD, MPH

We have created Leading Others in Writing for Health for health care providers, health and wellness coaches, teachers, and other professionals who help people during times of transition, physical illness, and emotional upheaval due to life events.  Our intention for participants is two-fold; firstly, that participants learn how the expressive writing model and its extensions may benefit their patients’ and clients’ physical, emotional, and spiritual health, and secondly, how expressive writing may help them build their own resilience. Many healthcare providers will find this training useful for guiding their patients and clients toward making life course corrections as they navigate difficult challenges such as divorce, separation, death of parent, child, or life partner, beginning new relationships, empty-nesters, living with a rare or chronic illness, entering a new career or taking a leadership position.

In this experiential workshop, Evidenced-based Expressive Writing (EW) and its extended adaptations are the foundational tools for self-awareness, healing, and growth. Through carefully designed short writing activities, participants will learn the defining characteristics and guiding principles of writing to heal practices. However, no affinity for writing or writing proficiency is required. Participants will learn that anyone who is willing to sit down with a pen and paper and dive into writing as a transformative tool to know themselves better and to create goals for themselves can find greater vitality and joy through this process.

The inner journey of Leading Others in Writing for Health is where helping professionals learn how to guide other to optimize their strengths, values, passions, and language to create a life course correction toward their optimal vision of their best possible lives. Through the writing exercises and reflective group discussions, participants create a roadmap to move forward, vibrantly and purposefully. Using evidenced-based expressive writing tools, participants write for their eyes only their plan for moving beyond what they may think they cannot get over.  Participants learn how to write to bring closure about painful life events and create a fresh vision for health, vitality, and joy. Through short writing activities, participants process emotions and experiences in a way that transforms their thinking and their psychological and spiritual health. Using these evidenced-based prompts and exercises, participants will write, reflect on their writing and then discuss their reflection to their writing in small groups. Through this experiential processing, participants practice with tools they will be able to share with their clients and patients.

Participant Tools:

• Expressive writing to move beyond obstacles to your optimal well-being.
• Transactional writing to communicate with compassion, empathy, forgiveness, and gratitude.
• Poetic writing to express rites of passage with metaphor, story, poetry, and creative nonfiction.
• Affirmative writing to discover strengths enabling your best possible life by writing it forward.
• Legacy writing to share values and the life lessons learned for those you love.
• Mindful writing for awareness, attention, acceptance, affection, appreciation, and affirmation.

Using These Tools Participants Will Learn How Writing:

• Creates vision and sets intentions
• Clarifies values
• Assesses status
• Stimulates thinking that leads to insights and understanding
• Changes perspective and perception
• Facilitates mindfulness practice
• Expresses and defines readiness to change
• Clarifies importance and builds confidence
• Removes obstacles to build confidence and resilience
• Measures progress
• Encourages staying on track
• Builds resilience
• Affirms strengths
• Communicates gratitude, empathy and compassion
• Creates, develops and supports exuberance
• Produces opportunities to flourish

Register Now for the May 2018 program!

Click here and register before April 13th to receive an 10% early registration discount.