Tag: Writing Therapy

Scream Therapy podcast appearance + ‘Write Your Revolution!: A Punk Rock Self-Esteem Workbook’

Posted on by SimonNozomi in Mental Health, Music, Writing

In July 2018 I wrote a blog post here about my perception of a link between therapy and punk rock, particularly from a self-esteem point of view. Happy with my effort, the post joined its comrades and, as far as I was concerned, was lying dormant until, last November, I had an out-of-the-blue email from a Canadian fellow called Jason Schreurs telling me he was writing a book and doing a podcast about punk rock and mental health, and would I have time for an interview to talk about my ideas?

As surprised as I was, Jason’s timing was prescient in that I had just the day before been talking to my writing mentor, Meg-John Barker, about potentially taking the DNA of that punky blog post and forging it into some kind of therapeutic writing resource built around a three-pronged attack of resistance, rebellion and reclamation.

Speaking to Jason on Zoom later that week, I was excited and humbled to have been given the opportunity to talk to a likeminded individual (and perceptive interviewer) about my affiliation with punk and its impact on my life. Surveying the wealth of interviews already populating his Scream Therapy podcast site, I was also enthused to see just how many other people Jason had tracked down who shared our take on a connection between punk and mental health, featuring both on-the-ground punk band members and mental health professionals with a punk background of some kind. This was most definitely a project that I was proud to be a part of, and it spurred me on to complete my own, which by now had a definite name – Write Your Revolution.

And so it has come to pass this week, that both the podcast interview and my writing resource have taken their place in two corners of the internet, ready for any interested party who might stumble upon them. As a friend commented after I shared the interview with him, ‘It’s gas how content you create can travel so far and resonate with people so long as it’s real and true.’ As hackneyed as it might sound, if either make an impact of any kind on even one person, then that’s something I’ll happily take with me on the rest of my journey.

Simon

Writing.ie Article – ‘Writing Therapy and The Power of the Pen’

Posted on by SimonNozomi in Counselling & Psychotherapy, Writing

Writing Therapy and The Power of the Pen by Simon Forsyth

This is a bit of a mouthful, but I recently had the opportunity to write about writing therapy for writing.ie – and now that the writing is done, it is available to read at the above link. Many thanks to Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin for the invitation – I feel this is a good synthesis of my feelings towards the medium and it features sound punctuation to boot (according to my retired journalist father!). If you would like to explore the idea of writing in therapy, do get in touch.

Simon