Mental Health
Here’s the Therapeutic Value of Writing in My Editorial Experience.
How communities can motivate and empower writers
Background and Context
Writing can have multiple dimensions. As it may be perceived as an intellectual activity from the external eyes, writing has emotional and spiritual aspects, too.
Modern-day writers are more stressed and under more pressure than the older generations. The role of the writers substantially changed with emerging technologies and new norms in the publishing industry.
Modern writers have been facing new challenges. In addition to their creative and research endeavors, they also shoulder new roles and responsibilities such as administration, marketing, and selling their products. Let alone indie writers, even traditionally published writers, must possess entrepreneurial skills nowadays.
This competitive shift in the publishing industry substantially increased the stress and pressure on writers. While they primarily focus on creative aspects, writers’ attention and focus were forced to shift to several other concerns. They started facing stressful situations, dealing with rejections and isolation, and experiencing other strong emotions such as anxiety and fear.
I provide this background to share my recent observations and relate them to our mission, goals, values, and the growing culture of our community.
I experienced a new term characterizing our community: therapeutic
The therapeutic value of ILLUMINATION
ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications are inclusive and diverse, supporting 15,500+ contributors. We support different levels of writers, from absolute beginners to the most accomplished ones.
Some of us may immediately react to this unexpected and unusual statement, but it is a real case for some of us. I want to share my observations and findings in the last two weeks based on interactions with several writers on Medium. The day after I announced ILLUMINATION on 19 March, I started receiving many private messages and emails from writers.
The questions and concerns were intriguing. The reactions started with some doubt. A few even characterized my proposition as “too good to be true” or “too ambitious”. I expected such a reaction from some, so no surprise to that end.
The surprise was an emerging pattern. I received many email messages and private notes. The word therapeutic was repeated in almost all of them. I felt compelled to explore the reasons that triggered this serendipitous term “therapeutic” mentioned frequently.
After analyzing the context of the term therapeutic, an image of a large city (such as New York) came to my mind. I imagined characters such as people migrating from smaller cities, towns, or villages with hopes and aspirations. The cosmopolitan town may have fantastic infrastructure, facilities, and settings. However, it provides no rules or guidelines for starting a new life and connecting with people. Where am I going with this analogy?
The feedback I gained from some writers in the last week was eye-opening. For example, some writers mentioned that their articles previously had no comments, claps, or highlights. They were ignored and neglected in this large platform, Medium, with thousands of members buzzing around and stressing to be curated and dealing with rejections from popular publications.
Admittedly, in my first month on Medium, I felt the same; therefore, I understand the situation hence have strong empathy and compassion for these sentiments. We are all grateful that there are a lot of functions and features on Medium. However, for new writers, it is like coming to a new city and not knowing how to start adapting to a new life. This transition can create substantial anxiety and withdrawal symptoms.
What ILLUMINATION provided to some new writers was the recognition, belonging to a tribe, and acceptance of their creative work. The publication is only a tool, but the supportive community made a real difference. This support mechanism might have created the emergence of the term therapeutic.
When people start feeling a warm and friendly atmosphere, they feel the therapeutic value of a writing community. As writers, we have our challenges and difficulties at a personal and professional level.
Expressing our thoughts and feelings in a friendly environment can undoubtedly be a therapeutic activity. I hope this therapeutic effect can be reflected in our culture. I am very pleased and feel privileged that this serendipitous outcome, “the therapeutic effect”, naturally occurred in our community.
I notice that cross-pollination is happening to some extent. Perhaps it is one of the triggers of therapeutic sentiments spreading in the community. We are tribal creatures, so supporting each other with writing rituals can create healing energy in the community.
It is pleasing to see some writers tagging their followers who are not yet part of our community. Let’s continue this cross-pollination activity and gain more and more writers in our community. Introducing new writers can increase our collective intelligence and capabilities. Let’s get more and more diversity in our content scope.
Now that we have two weeks of experience, I want to obtain your views on your articles, how you feel about being in a community atmosphere, whether the community spirit provides you with any therapeutic values, and how we can further improve and leverage this capability in our culture.
In a community atmosphere, we share our thoughts, aspirations, and dreams. We interact and engage in meaningful ways. Rather than conflicting, we extend each other’s ideas and create synergistic outcomes. Recognition, acceptance, and support of ideas can be therapeutic activities.
Different parts of our brains ask for different things. Therefore, diversity and variety can contribute to the therapeutic effect. With trust and integrity, we can express our thoughts and feelings with authenticity. We are writers, and we know what the writers need and desire.
Thank you for reading my perspectives.
Science-Based Therapeutic Value of Expressive Writing for Mental Health
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