Long before I was a counsellor, and even before I had ever been to counselling myself, writing was my therapy.
Creative Writing as Therapy
As a confused and hormonal teenager, often at odds with the world and my place in it, I would stay often up late writing poetry, song lyrics, and even working on novels. Much of my writing was confessional, from my own perspective, yet even the fictional characters I created carried pieces of me. Scribbling into a notepad or typing away on my laptop for hours often left me calmer and lighter, and more at ease with myself, when earlier I had felt misunderstood, unheard, and alone. Writing helped me cope with the challenges I faced every day, as well as my own personal traumas. It also gave me great enjoyment, and chance to reflect on my victories as well.
From Creative Writing to Counselling
I came to truly love the creative process that writing offered, and went on to pursue the art academically, eventually completing a PhD in Creative Writing. I embarked on a career as a writer, with some modest successes, but the act of writing remained more than professional ambition—it was the instrument I turned to in my most emotional and fragile moments. It was my way of working through things with myself, providing a refuge, my safe place, that I still often turn to today.
However, there came a time when I realised that writing alone was not enough to work through certain things, like gaining the deeper understanding of myself and my inner struggles I so desperately needed. During one particular hardship that had me feeling like I’d hit rock bottom, I finally sought counselling on the advice of some of my close friends. The experience was completely transformative. It gave me the much-needed clarity of self I’d long searched for, and eventually set me on the path to becoming a counsellor myself.
Bringing Creative Writing into the Counselling Session
It was in that final year of training that a client of mine, a young man with a love of music and film told me that he’d been writing some poems between sessions. He told me he’d never really written anything before but after reading some poems online that his friend had written, he thought he’d give it a go. He said he never intended to show it to anyone, but just did it more for himself, and had really enjoyed the process. He told me there was one poem in particular that he felt particularly proud of, one that linked with many of the things we’d been circling around in sessions. I was very happy that he’d found this outlet for himself and of course was immediately reminded of the role writing had played in my own personal therapeutic journey. I rarely disclose anything of myself with clients, but on this occasion decided to share this with him. I pointed out that writing and journaling could be a great practice alongside our sessions as a way to aid in the processing of what our conversations bring up for him. He said he definitely would continue to write, and then asked if he could send me his poem. I told him I would be more than happy to read it.
A few days later his poem appeared in my inbox, and as I sat down to read it, I was stunned by the person who emerged from the words on my computer screen. In our counselling sessions, this client presented as confident, witty, and intelligent young man. He often shared his victories in the workplace and romantic or sexual contexts. He appeared to live a rich social life, always busy with friends, going to gigs and parties. He came to counselling in order to gain a general better understanding of his self, so that’s what we focused on in sessions. While I expected that there may be some underlying issues yet to come to the fore, any indication of this rarely entered the therapy room over our several months together. That said, there was a sadness in the client’s eyes I’d sometimes notice, a slight underlying anger perhaps as well, so I knew something was coming. This was my client’s first experience of therapy, so perhaps he just needed to keep exploring ‘the leaves’ before getting to the roots beneath it all, build up trust in me before getting truly vulnerable. And as I read his poem, there it was, laid bare. The truth of how he felt.
The man I’d been speaking to in sessions was the disguise he’d been wearing so deftly as he went about his days. On my computer screen, the disguise had been left behind. In his words, I read about a frightened, abandoned boy, with a deep sense of insecurity he’d been carrying with him his entire life. He confessed to having no idea who he is, just a shell, a husk, and a reflection of the world around him, feeling he had little to offer in return. In writing he was able to reveal a truth he hadn’t been able to voice out loud. Writing gave him a safety he hadn’t yet found in the counselling room.
Men and Creative Writing – Why it Works
It’s well documented that men can find it particularly hard to open up in face-to-face conversation, often due to ingrained gender norms and the toxic aspects of masculinity. Writing offers a protective buffer, a distance, and a sort of “disinhibition effect.” For my client, telling me those things through conversation would have been impossible, but in writing he could finally let them out. In the following session, we used his poem as a doorway into the deeper struggles he described in the poem, which were of course the very things that had brought him to therapy in the first place. It was a cathartic experience for him, and for me a moment that confirmed the unique power of writing in therapeutic work.
Since then, I have integrated Creative Writing Therapy into my practice with many clients. I often invite them to write something between sessions—whether a journal entry, a story, a letter, or a poem. Sometimes the writing becomes the focus of our time together, and sometimes it serves as a springboard into other conversations. Either way, it offers clients an alternative route into difficult emotions and memories, one they may not be able to access through spoken words alone.
I’ve found this approach especially effective with many of my male clients. Though some may be reluctant at first, seeing it as homework, eventually most of them are willing to at least give it a go. Somewhere along the way writing became something considered a more ‘feminine’ subject or pastime, but you need only to refer to the likes of Bukowksi, Hemmingway and Steinbeck to quickly brush aside those illusions. I think crucially, from a therapeutic perspective, writing allows men to maintain a sense of control—they are nudging themselves forward, rather than being pushed. The confession of those hidden traumas and shame occur in a solitary setting. It is then up to them to decide when, if at all, they wish to share that in counselling.
Regardless of whether they wish to or not, I’m confident that just the act of writing alone can give them something. Because in that simple act of putting pen to paper, they often find a voice they didn’t know they had.
Maté Jarai is a BACP-registered humanistic counsellor working with men who want to cut through the noise and get real about what’s going on. He’s based in Brighton & Hove.
