Writing about the past can be therapeutic, even transformational. Writing Away the Demons is a very good book about that process. From the Foreword by David Read Johnson:
There is a bridge between the present and my past. I call her memory, and over her I travel back and forth, my home now there, then here, seeking comfort against the uncertainties that press on me. With her, I revisit the kind gestures, the warm embraces, the belly laughs that graced my life along the way and that help me face the rising edge of time which greets me each morning.
But I also travel back along that bridge into the darker corners, and don't know why. Surely I should heed the signs of warning and calls to turn back that have been placed along the way, by me, after previous upsetting forays! Why do I return to these moments or months of grief or fear or violence, that raised fist, the shameful disrobing, those awful words, which sliced my heart in two? Let memory fade. Let the day begin anew. Let me be buoyed by the possibilities of the future, not the hard facts of the past. ...
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...I am certain that this book will command your attention. Like the people who broke out of prison by digging a tunnel with spoons, these authors have broken out of their prisons of memory with pens. This is not a book about transformative writing; this book is transformative writing. The authors write deeply and beautifully about their experiences and their healing process, illustrating directly both their resiliency and the power of creative writing. Dr. Reiter provides an excellent overview of the therapeutic effects of writing in the first chapter, noting ten principles derived from a broad range of sources [overview of the principles] ... . Throughout, one feels the power of transformational writing in altering people's relationship to their own history. ...
There is a bridge between the present and my past. I call her memory, and after reading this book, I think I can call her friend.
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