The Literary Therapist: Delving into Reflection
By Arrieonna Derricoatte, written March 2025
Writing and journaling are more than just putting pen to paper, they can be a way to work through things going on in your life. Therapeutic writing can offer a way to reflect on your emotions and experiences and give you insight into your feelings and behaviors. Through therapeutic writing, you can find ways to move through grief and complex life events, aiding in the healing process. As well, it can be good for reducing stress and anxiety. It can also help navigate challenges and organize your thoughts, leading to clarity and calmness.
To start the therapeutic writing process, set aside some undisturbed time to write. You can decide on a frequency that works for you right now. Use this time to express yourself using visuals, prompts, poetry, or any medium. Sometimes, even just free writing for 15 minutes to an hour, putting whatever you’re feeling on a page, helps.
If you’re looking for more inspiration for therapeutic writing, you can join our spring workshop offering, The Literary Therapist: A Creative Writer’s Guide To Therapy, taught Caroline R. Jennings. This workshop invites you to begin the cathartic and therapeutic process of putting pen to paper. Participants should be open to personal growth, insight, exploration, and healing. Each session will begin with a prompt from a woman-identifying writer (a poem, quote, or excerpt from a short story), and then participants will have the opportunity to write, journal, and reflect. Through your writing, you will be encouraged to identify challenges and navigate patterns to better process grief and loss and begin the art of self-healing. At the end of each session, Jennings will allow everyone to come together and share their writing. The group will practice reflective listening to create an environment built upon empathy, acceptance, and mutual trust.
Jennings knows the power of therapeutic writing on a personal level. She holds a master’s in rehabilitation counseling from The University of Texas at Southwestern. She recently found her way back to creative writing about three years ago after her mother passed away from ALS. Her husband was advancing in his career at a law firm, and their children were getting older and busier. Jennings felt lonely and lost, which led her back to writing. Caroline shared the following about her return to the page:
“I discovered the Westport Writers’ Workshop and signed up for a class, and then another. I’m not saying it was a cure-all, but slowly and surely, I found my way back to myself . . . writing was often my saving grace as I found solace in poems and short stories. But once I had children, my time was often not my own. My experiences aren’t unique. . . . Grief is not linear. Marriage and motherhood are hard. But we have one another, and we have our craft. And while writing can feel scary and vulnerable, it is also incredibly cathartic and therapeutic.”
Yellow Arrow Publishing is honored to offer this workshop because we believe writing and healing don’t have to be done alone. We can do this in community with others. This workshop is less about teaching writing but centered on fostering an environment where people are encouraged to process and reflect on their experiences. Jennings will meet you as a woman, mother, and friend in this space. Writing, listening, and reflecting, among others, is a start to initiate the healing process. If you’re interested in this kind of writing, this workshop is for you.
Arrieonna Derricoatte (she/her) is currently a senior at Ohio State University. She is an English major with a concentration in writing, rhetoric, and literacy with minors in human rights and professional writing. She is passionate about reading and community building around arts, education, and policy. Arrieonna is also a student art administrator and writing intern at Urban Arts Space. She plans to pursue a master’s in public administration upon graduation. After school, she hopes to further her career in nonprofit work and community programming while seeking a career in publishing. She can be found on Instagram @arrieonnaderricoatte.
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Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women-identifying writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we BLAZE a path for women-identifying creatives this year by purchasing one of our publications or a workshop from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, for yourself or as a gift, joining our newsletter, following us on Facebook or Instagram or subscribing to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.