'If it does have any therapeutic value, the only way to get access to it is to write without any therapeutic intent. You transform experience into, for want of a better word, art."Enough, already. See you soon.
Thursday 26 April 2012
Writing and Therapy - A Quick PS
Here's an afterthought from my previous post. I've just been reading interviews with Edward St Aubyn as I am so enjoying his novel, Mother's Milk. No writer could have drawn more comprehensively on their own experience than he has, so I was interested in his remark about writing and therapy.
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Well this is it, isn't it? I think too many great books (I'll think of one in a minute!) have sprung form the writer's need to articulate personal experience (I assume this is a kind of therapy) for us to dismiss it as a valid basis for creativity and storytelling in particular. But at some point art (or artifice?) has to intervene. The author must step back and look at what he/she has made with a different eye, and let the transformation take place. The result may be quite different from the experience or emotion that inspired it.
ReplyDeleteWell that's my take on it, anyway!
AliB
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I like the idea of art intervening (wish it did more often). I think the stepping back is crucial - you need perspective and editorial clarity to be able to write well, but I do think writing to purge your own emotions is a different process from writing to purge other peoples'.
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