Tuesday

The Lapidus Pilot Project finally, tentatively, got off the ground this week. Recruitment has been difficult and yesterday only one woman turned up. She was engaged and willing, so the session ran smoothly, but we'd obviously hoped for more participants. And I'm not sure what it will all add to our understanding of the therapeutic value of creative writing.

I have butted up once more against one of the tensions between my self as writer and my self as healer. When I was solely a writer (was I ever that?) the world, and every person in it, was available to my pen. These days I wonder, at what point does my interaction with someone, my response to those I meet, become enough of my own property, to be expressed in my creative work? It is not an easy question to find an answer to. I notice I do not write about my counselling clients here - even heavily disguised - though I carry them and their concerns with me in my everyday life. But I do write about those I connect with when I'm working as a poet in a therapeutic environment. Have I found the right place for that fine line between me as (trainee) counsellor and me as writer?