HyperWriting — How Writing Can Become Your Self-Therapy

The therapeutic way to find your deepest personal stories

We already know the concept of creative writing.

Creative writing is a form of written expression that lets you simply put your thoughts on a particular topic on paper, which can ultimately result in a mostly experimental but meaningful story. Led by a seminar leader, this form of writing can produce particularly creative literary works.

For the psychologist and publicist Jürgen vom Scheidt, however, the term creative writing never really went far enough.

Because from his decades of experience as a seminar leader of numerous writing workshops in his Munich practice, he was often able to experience deeper, mostly meditative or even therapeutic approaches to writing with the participants.

From his observations, he called this process HyperWriting. The Greek word “hyper” means “beyond, more than” and thus describes going beyond, that is, the continuation of the term creative writing.

But how exactly is this form of writing expressed and what triggers it?

Writing as a Continuous Self-Awareness

HyperWriting actually has a deeper influence on the psyche than creative writing in the writing process and can ultimately even take on a meditative character.

Because Jürgen vom Scheidt says:

“Unfortunately we are often content with fantasies and thought models. It is only when we write them that we can give the wishes and fears of the future visible shapes that we can then discuss — with ourselves and with others. Acting and changing, inventing new, viable compromises, these are the next steps. That is then the actual therapy. “

In his book “Kreatives Schreiben — HyperWriting. Texte als Wege zu sich selbst und zu anderen” (German Edition only; engl. Texts as Paths to Yourself), published in 2006 (first published in 1989), he explains that for him writing is more than just creative expression. It is the ideal medium for self-awareness, meditation and psychotherapy.

He goes on to say:

“Above all, it is the aspect of continuous self-awareness. This is something completely different from the brooding introspection that many people practice in solitude. Real self-awareness requires the reaction of other people.”

Jürgen vom Scheidt describes writing here as a special method of self-awareness that leads to more self-knowledge and, above all, can help as an “instrument to expand awareness” to learn more about yourself and learned behaviors.

HyperWriting thus promotes a writing style that combines elements from autobiographical, factual and narrative texts. For this reason, “the published diary is, so to speak, the archetype of HyperWriting”.

Important is: to let go and to completely rely on the creative process, to have confidence in what happens inside of you during the writing process. Only then you can experience meditative, spiritual traits.

Two Important Functions of HyperWriting

There are two important functions of HyperWriting to maintain the therapeutic effect.

• Reminder: like a time machine you go back to the action to find out what was and how you felt
• Materialization: the processing of emotions and experiences through writing into “understandable forms, words and passages”

Writing thus leads to a “split into a subjective experience of inner reality and an objective observation”. Mostly it turns out that in the materialization of memory, your own perspective on events appears more extreme than it still appeared at the time.

Writing therefore acts as a “cleansing, cathartic act, as a piece of psychotherapy”.

Jürgen vom Scheidt explains:

“However, writing not only requires a certain discipline and practice, but […] confronting yourself, for example in the process of remembering, without which writing is difficult. Writing always means writing about yourself. And if you still hide like that.”

And further:

“Through the drill at school, writing has become something so natural for us that we no longer feel how unbelievable this process actually is: the spiritual takes on material form, thoughts become words, in black and white. “

The Inner Writer

Jürgen vom Scheidt clearly emphasizes that the writing routine is a fundamental aspect of the therapeutic process. Because “only those who write a lot — be it privately or professionally — will gradually give their inner writer more contours.”

But the inner writer does not just develop with routine, but with every new writing experience — a process that can last a lifetime.

He explains:

“Similar to that of the therapist in psychotherapy, it is the essential task of the inner writer to alleviate virulent fears, feelings of guilt and defensive mechanisms from childhood that prevent remembering and thus becoming whole.”

So he asks us: “What is writing other than putting these inner conversations and actions on paper?”

The Act of Therapeutic Writing

“The same mental processes play a central role in writing as in psychoanalysis. First you have to remember the past. In writing down, you repeat the experiences from that time and finally work through them again when critically revising the raw text. “

Jürgen vom Scheidt therefore particularly recommends working together in a writing workshop.

“Let us concentrate rather on what the unconscious presses into the conscious, on what wants to express itself, what has to express itself, because something is no longer right at heart. Or that wants to get out into the public eye because disorder and injustice are causing outrage in the outside world and calling for a battle of words. “

He emphasizes:

“I suspect that today the suicide rate and, for related reasons, the number of inmates of mental hospitals would be much higher if some of these endangered people had not discovered diary and letter writing as an emergency valve, often in adolescence.”

To get to this meditative and therapeutic point, several steps are followed:

• 1. Knowledge: Knowledge about the material to be worked on and about one’s life. Reduction of repression and recall of (childhood) memories
• 2. Experience: Reproduction of old, familiar, unconscious behaviors and renewed “experiencing” of past experiences
• 3. Design: Design of the raw text, the actual materialization: the writing
• 4. Reading aloud: Self-confidence training through publication, e.g. by reading your own texts in front of an audience
• 5. Feedback: creative, also emotional feedback from other writing participants on the text, suggestions for revision and interpretation

For Jürgen vom Scheidt, writing is a journey through life, as “a further increase in the degree of immersion, combined with a corresponding depth of experience”.

The Most Important Element: to Remember

For Jürgen vom Scheidt, the most important element in writing is the process of remembering. The “I” form is absolutely necessary:

“Risk a personal introduction to a topic, even if it may seem unfamiliar to you to say “I” at first. The profit, however, is huge. You are first of all with yourself — and only then “with the thing” that is at stake.”

Writing about the past creates deep wounds:

“Writing requires, on different levels, a certain remembrance that leads back into one’s own stories. In this way we get (again) an idea of ​​the actual depth of our existence — and a depth and intensity that we may only have really experienced as children, with all its beauties, with all its horrors. Because of the latter (and because school and parental home educate and bend us in a certain direction) we are constantly developing new compromises, unfortunately at the expense of the intensity of our attitude towards life. We are also saying goodbye to our spiritual depth. The price is immeasurably high: a superficiality that can ultimately lead to boredom and at some point to a feeling of senselessness. “

How is meditative writing expressed?

• by sinking into the writing of the words themselves
• by going deeper into the (dream) picture of the topic
• by “looking inside” without noticing the outside, especially when writing with a lot of concentration,
• when the thoughts flow and you only “write” and no longer “think”

HyperWriting: Therapeutic Writing in a Group

Creative writing courses primarily emerged in the early 1980s and enjoyed great popularity around the world. Not only learning the methods of writing, but also the development of topics through chains of associations and especially the fine-tuning, i.e. the correction in the group through feedback from others, is an important component of the writing seminars.

The duration of each session is around 90 minutes, sometimes a whole weekend, with the aim of going through a creative (life) journey in order to take a text home with you as the result.

Writing in a group in writing seminars has 3 important effects:

• stimulating effect: texts by others arouse associations and suggestions for your own texts
• Immediate response: immediate feedback on the raw text read aloud
• Presence as an audience: the presence of others makes it easier to write down your own texts; atmosphere of community leads to co-writing

Jürgen vom Scheidt says: “Those who only write alone get stuck in the loneliness and isolation from which they originally wanted to get out of writing.”

Therefore, it requires “sometimes, knowledgeable accompaniment” from an expert. This is done by the seminar leader, who does not see himself as a therapist, but merely as an assisting observer who repeatedly makes suggestions for your own form of self-observation. Written self-talk often helps.

Benefits:

• no longer being alone with your own thoughts and writing in isolation
• blockages and stuck routines can be broken
• new suggestions for topics and memories
• at the end of the seminar or after each session, the participant in the writing therapy receives a very specific result
• you learn to observe yourself better, to describe feelings and experiences more clearly, and above all to recognize what you take away from memories and what you avoid in the future
• writing creates a feeling of liberation

“It was an amazing experience for me to see that in a group it is much easier to ”let go“ and let the words flow freely while writing.” — J. vom Scheidt

HyperWriting Method: the 4-Column System

This is where the “hyper” in HyperWriting plays a special role.

On a DIN A3 or DIN A2 format, 4 columns are pre-formed by hand or on the computer — as a tabel. The aim of this method is to reshape the emotionality of the thoughts in order to develop new creative models.

Through the associative jumping back and forth between the columns it allows you to create the emotions more and more into an image that, from column 1 as a feeling to column 3, becomes an abstract new literary element.

Finally, to abstract more and more from the personal level in column 1, until only those elements remain in column 3 that may be of importance for the text result.

• Column 1: diary, logbook
• Column 2: intended writing project
• Column 3: additions to the writing project
• Column 4: “Flea market”, ideas about other projects

As a HyperWriter you try to find out about yourself here because you change through writing. With the 4-column method, you can more easily jump around between thoughts without losing sight of the actual topic.

The 4-column method first compares the “general” and the “personal” of the raw text equally and at the end it is decided which column should be relevant for the writing result.

Advantage: many things come to mind as you write. So that several tabs do not have to be opened and the changing of the writing “sheet” might distract you from writing and the flow of thoughts, you remain on one “sheet” and fill in all ideas according to the column topics.

Jürgen vom Scheidt recommends: “You first write with your heart and later revise what you have written with your head.”

Conclusion

“Writing as a self-awareness is the source of all forms of private and professional writing. For those who let this source flow continuously, writing becomes the most important thinking tool with which one […] from a “higher point of view” […] can actively shape life better with the help of the knowledge gained through writing.”

HyperWriting enables deep-seated stories to be extracted through memory, written down and shared with an interested group. This does open painful wounds, but the writing therapy allows them to heal much better.

We find this type of writing numerous here on this platform. All the personal and very painful experiences are processed by writing them down and shared with the very open and empathetic community. The compassion and the words of praise and suggestions in the comments help the writers to heal their wounds.

The best example of this are the autobiographical stories of Yana Bostongirl. She repeatedly emphasizes how writing down and publishing her experiences helps her to process everything, to understand it better and finally to come to terms with the memories. Her following story is highly recommended.

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Cover Photo: Doctor holding a stethoscope and heart and working at hospital. Health care, insurance and help concept/ kelvn — stock.adobe.com