Is creative writing tomorrow's therapy?

One particular realm of therapeutic interventions I was intrigued to explore, when first getting into neuroaesthetics, is the possible positive impacts of creative writing in different forms. As someone who has personally explored creative writing, like poetry, to help my general well-being, I thought the research around these areas to be surprisingly robust. I never quite thought of my personal journey for relaxation and self-expression as something that could possibly have genuine neurological benefits for individuals. 

When it comes to the more neuroaesthetic aspect of healthcare, like possible new forms of therapy, there is research and theories to indicate that there may be even more to storytelling and creative writing than we ever explored. In some research, it shows that when we read and interpret fiction "the reading mode and reader personality factors influence reading-related behavioral and brain activity" (Jacobs, 2015). This fosters a scientific lead to tieing together two academic fields not previously seen to particularly overlap: creative writing and neuroscience.

The words, even those not spoken/read/written, are just one aspect of creative writing. In an article within the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Journal, it mentions the aspects of poetry, specifically, that produce a very intriguing biological response from subjects where "the emotional power of poetry is... promoted, or enhanced, through its formal structural composition" (Wassiliwizky et al., 2017). This, in a sense, shows how within very visual forms of poetry there is a tangible impact on the space, alignment, and imagery of written words for those who experience their aesthetic. This research depicts the impact of poetic words and pieces, insighting significant chills and impacting cortisol levels of those reading them (Wassiliwizky et al., 2017). We may anecdotally speak about the chills of aesthetic experiences or impactful pieces of art, and this research depicts how they are real phenomena, influence well-being, and prompt introspective thought.

However, we see all these impacts on our minds and neurology from creative writing and words but how do these help with fostering new forms of therapy? Research shows that taking an interdisciplinary approach to understanding linguistic/literary theory and neuroscience is able to help foster further research on how we can possibly use this in therapeutic practices. This is not new to the concepts of therapy; from journaling to writing our schedules or to-do lists, expressing ourselves literarily is often a suggestible means of helping people in times of stress. As I dove deeper into the subject of poetry or creative writing as a legitimate form of intense therapy I came across an organization called the National Association of Poetry Therapy. Their mission "includes psychologists, social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, educators, librarians/information specialists, nurses, physicians, occupational and recreational therapists...", which truly shows how this new area to explore in neuroaesthetics has communities of interdisciplinary experts behind the understanding of, as they put it, "healing through written language, symbol, and story" (National Association for Poetry Therapy - Home, n.d.). This growing field under neuroaesthetics is one I, personally, am really excited to see grow.

References:

Jacobs, A. M. (2015). Neurocognitive poetics: methods and models for investigating the neuronal and cognitive-affective bases of literature reception. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00186

National Association for Poetry Therapy - Home. (n.d.). Poetrytherapy.org. https://poetrytherapy.org

Wassiliwizky, E., Koelsch, S., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T., & Menninghaus, W. (2017). The emotional power of poetry: neural circuitry, psychophysiology and compositional principles. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(8), 1229–1240. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsx069