Creative Journaling & Therapeutic Journaling

Delve into the world of journaling and creative writing each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays! It’s a great opportunity to learn some new skills, create some amazing stories through short exercises, and have some fun along the way!

Journaling has many health benefits including:

• Relieves depression;
• Reduces stress;
• Promotes healing;
• Boosts memory;
• Calms anxiety; and
• Helps people to cope better with trauma and grief.

Tuesdays 9.30 -11.30 am Therapeutic Journaling

What is it? And what to expect.

Therapeutic Journaling focuses on narrative, storytelling in written and visual expression to make meaning of your life. The act of narrating and storytelling enables exploration, self-expression and investigation to provide self-awareness and help reframe outdated narratives that no longer serve you.     

Therapeutic Journaling integrates more clinical modalities like DBT, CBT, ACT, Mindfulness to explore self in a written and visual format (through creative expression). The use of more formal and clinical strategies adds a deepening of self-investigation, with well researched tools, perspectives and concepts. These more formal tools align themselves to various mental health practices, and clinician styles.

Why does it include a visual component? It includes the visual component as not everyone who journals just writes, and visual images are just another form of language to help investigate self.

Thursdays 1-3 pm Creative Journaling

Creative journaling is based more on visual play and exploration in many different art mediums, art forms and styles. Creative Journaling also includes written expression, which could be a one-word statement, poetic expression, dot point, affirmation or creative story writing. The visual play and investigation are a way to contain larger ideas, personal issues and feelings. It is also a great way to express a visual representation of what’s going through your mind, heart, and energy, while providing a place of inspiration, and inner review.

 In the group you will be provided with a focus area and topic to work from. Providing a place to start, but where you end up is very personal, and based on your needs. As it is grouped based it helps open up shared experiences to broaden your personal home practice, and to let you know that you are not alone.