Devotion

Devotion questions prevailing views and assumptions concerning the efficacy of ‘writing the self’ by illuminating a complex and shifting interplay of seduction and resistance in confessional discourse, the power of delusion, motives of evasion and self-preservation, as well as problems of privacy and its invasion, voyeurism and its technologies, and gender dynamics in medicine. It also contributes original representations of female friendship, parenting, postnatal depression, suicide, disability and suburban family life

Bernard

The work deals with loss, mourning and remembrance. It also contributes to discourse on a key figure in the teaching and appreciation of Australian literature, Bernard Hickey. Professor Hickey, with Anna Rutherford, established the study of Australian literature in Europe. He worked for several years at universities in Rome and then Venice, and, from 1990 to 2009, was Professor of New Literatures and English at the University of Salenta in Lecce. He was notable for his extraordinary enthusiasm and vitality as an ambassador for Australian literary studies for more than thirty years

The many transformations of Albert Facey

In the last months of his life, 86-year-old Albert Facey became a best-selling author and revered cultural figure following the publication of his autobiography, A Fortunate Life. Released on Anzac Day 1981, it was praised for its "plain, unembellished, utterly sincere and un-self-pitying account of the privations of childhood and youth" (Semmler) and "extremely powerful description of Gallipoli" (Dutton 16). Within weeks, critic Nancy Keesing declared it an "Enduring Classic." Within six months, it was announced as the winner of two prestigious non-fiction awards, with judges acknowledging Facey's "extraordinary memory" and "ability to describe scenes and characters with great precision" ("NBC" 4). A Fortunate Life also transformed the fortunes of its publisher. Founded in 1976 as an independent, not-for-profit publishing house, Fremantle Arts Centre Press (FACP) might have been expected, given the Australian average, to survive for just a few years. Former managing editor Ray Coffey attributes the Press's ongoing viability, in no small measure, to Facey's success (King 29). Along with Wendy Jenkins, Coffey edited Facey's manuscript through to publication; only five months after its release, with demand outstripping the capabilities, FACP licensed Penguin to take over the book's production and distribution. Adaptations soon followed. In 1984, Kerry Packer's PBL launched a prospectus for a mini-series, which raised a record $6.3 million (PBL 7–8). Aired in 1986 with a high-rating documentary called The Facey Phenomenon, the series became the most watched television event of the year (Lucas). Syndication of chapters to national and regional newspapers, stage and radio productions, audio- and e-books, abridged editions for young readers, and inclusion on secondary school curricula extended the range and influence of Facey's life writing. Recently, an option was taken out for a new television series (Fraser)

The potential role of life-writing therapy in facilitating \u27recovery\u27 for those with mental illness

This article addresses the experience of designing and conducting life-writing workshops for a group of clients with severe mental illness; the aim of this pilot study was to begin to determine whether such writing about the self can aid in individual ‘recovery’, as that term is understood by contemporary health professionals. A considerable amount has been written about the potential of creative writing in mental health therapy; the authors of this article provide a brief summary of that literature, then of the concept of ‘recovery’ in a psychology and arts therapy context. There follows a first-hand account by one of the authors of being an arts therapy workshop facilitator in the role of a creative practitioner. This occurred in consultation with, and monitored by, experienced mental health professionals

Writing therapy: Paradox, peril and promise

Belief in the remedial potential of the writing process has intensified in the past three decades, with scientific studies indicating health and wellbeing benefits; poets, novelists and memoirists proclaiming therapeutic effects; and, innovative and broad-ranging use of creative writing in counselling and health care. This paper proposes that tertiary writing education can benefit from the explicit study of writing therapy as a complex, evolving and contested set of theories and practices. It outlines and contextualises my own approach, discusses some relevant literature, and proposes future interdisciplinary mixed-methods research, for the time is ripe in Australia for writing and health teachers and researchers to work together to investigate writing’s risks, paradoxes and recuperative possibilities

Writing Therapy in the Academy: Risks and challenges

Since 2008, I have coordinated a unit entitled Writing Therapy as part of ECU’s undergraduate writing course. Students explore the theory and practice of writing therapy and its connections with discourses of psychology, psychoanalysis, literature and creativity, as well as the related fields of bibliotherapy, trauma studies and testimonial life-writing. They experiment with various kinds of writing, and consider the possible dangers of therapeutic writing, since in some cases the practice may engender anxiety and distress, or facilitate self-delusion and evasion rather than insight and transformation. Even so, suggesting that students experiment with forms of writing that published novelists, poets, social scientists and therapists consider remedial may create expectations of therapeutic benefit. The very title of the unit and its higher education setting posit the existence of a legitimate entity, so that verbal and written disclaimers and warnings that students should reserve their judgements may not be entirely convincing. Furthermore, the usefulness and appropriateness of personal writing in tertiary education is widely debated. This paper acknowledges such arguments, as well as concerns that a ‘therapeutic ethos’ has spread beyond the clinic, damaging social life and institutions and effectively depoliticising, pathologising and diminishing individuals. This type of prognosis, expounded by Phillip Rieff as early as 1966 in The triumph of the therapeutic, has been expressed recently by cultural analysts on both sides of the Atlantic, including Frank Furedi in Therapy culture: Cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age (2004) and Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel in One nation under therapy: How the helping culture is eroding self-reliance (2005). A particular concern is the alleged intrusion of therapy into education, a case elaborated by Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes in The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education (2009). This paper concludes that a Writing Therapy unit can productively negotiate these debates and make a useful contribution to a tertiary writing program, despite—and even because of—its contested status, inherent risks and ethical complexities