Date of Award

6-24-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Rhetoric and Writing

First Advisor

Heidi McCauley

Abstract

While living in Dallas, Texas, I had the incredible opportunity to work with women transitioning out of homelessness, addiction, prison, or other life traumas. During my four years of facilitating life skills and job readiness classes, I witnessed a desperate need for healing. Many of the women I served were stuck in the repetitive cycle of their unprocessed emotional trauma. These women were often victims of the unprecedented mental health crisis plaguing our world and had little to no access to mental health resources. My initial introduction into therapeutic writing helped me to accept my own mental health crisis and face what I had avoided for many years—writing about my personal trauma. My need for healing led me to a therapeutic writing group that provided a safe space to write and process. This experience opened my eyes to the possibility of therapeutic writing groups as a means to help marginalized populations find hope and healing. This research is autoethnographic in nature, and I utilize my personal writing samples and experiences—within non-clinical environments—to explore the legitimacy of writing as a means of navigating trauma and the potentials for healing. Furthermore, I examine the need for intervention, the history of therapeutic writing, the science, forms of expressive writing, and the validity of therapeutic writing groups. I believe this research could lay some groundwork for an accessible and cost-effective method to help marginalized groups process traumas—providing these individuals a freedom to imagine a future beyond the wounds that once defined them.

Download

Included in

Nonfiction Commons

Share

COinS