I am so honored and excited to share some of the reasons for, and structures of my Writing as a Righting Journey workshop on both the national and international levels.

In September, I will travel to Spain for the 5th International Health Humanities conference to present an hour workshop with Q & A to other medical professionals, caretakers, and citizen activists in healthcare.

Also, Josephine Ensign, University of Washington Nursing professor and I will co-present our work on Evaluating Creative Modalities Use with Marginalized Populations at the same venue.

In November, I will present a short paper on my writing workshop at The Mayo Clinic’s Humanities in Medicine Symposium in Phoenix.

If you know anyone in Europe or the US that you think should attend one of these, please let them know.

I’ll report back soon!

A writing workshop for parents who have children living

with chronic health issues

SAVE THE DATE:

SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2016

12 noon – 4 pm

Seattle, WA

contact me for more information: su************@****jm.org

 

 

Writing as a “Righting” Journey

THROUGH WRITING WE CAN:

Ø    Explore the ways illness effects our lives

Ø    Find courage to go deeper, discovering new meaning or affirming values we already hold

Ø    Have an opportunity to share our lives with others and find community

 

GOALS:

Ø    Provide parents structure for giving voice to their experiences of having a child living with a chronic illness,  e.g. changes in emotional, physical and social life

Ø    Provide immediate and on-going options for writing on one’s own and in a group

Ø    Provide books, readings, (fiction, non-fiction, poetry) that speak to a variety of issues surrounding illness, healing and caretaking

 

WHY:

“One of the more common challenges parents face when managing the care of their chronically ill children is that they simply may not have the ability to cope. Generally, the research shows that when moms are depressed, adherence [to the child’s medical needs..] will go down…”

 

Research also shows that emotions are centered and experienced by the part of the brain known as the amygdala. This is part of the early brain, the limbic system. Trauma and highly charged emotions can keep us centered in that area of the brain and not allow us to use our higher centers of thinking, the frontal cortex. In order to assess and move on from being stuck in feeling, to thinking about our feelings and then move into action or decision-making, we need to connect feelings to thinking, the amygdala needs connection to the frontal cortex.  Judy Willis, a neuroscientist and writing teacher has shown that writing can do just that.

 

From both personal experience and observation, I have seen that writing can ameliorate feelings of depression, thereby increasing a parent’s ability to, cope with daily life and care for, their child.  Writing in a group can also allow one to realize they are not alone and gain support for their struggles.

 

One participant of the first WARJ group had this to say when asked what she got out of it at the end of our 6 month sessions:

“…feeling understood and not alone…[it was]…much better than a support group for me as instead of commiserating we were putting our energy and feelings into art that heals and allows for release as well as a powerful way to share with others.”

 

WHO & WHEN:

Ø    This group will be open to parents of children with a chronic illness.

Ø    We will meet 8-9 times over a 9 month period.

Ø    Each session will last 1.5 hours in Seattle, Washington

 

The workshop is led by Suzanne Edison, MA. She is a psychotherapist, poet and mother of a child with Juvenile Myositis. She is also the Family Support Director for the Cure JM Foundation.  She has led workshops and given presentations on the Effects of Chronic Illness on Families and Coping with Chronic Illness to parents and medical professionals.  She also was awarded grants to write and publish two chapbooks of poems based on her journey and other parents with their chronically ill child.  She has poems published in many journals and anthologies.  For more information please see her website, www.seedison.com..