A growing body of literature supports health-related outcomes of reflective, expressive, and therapeutic writing for people living with physical and mental illness. This highly interactive two-part workshop will review the evidence and share practical strategies for creating and leading a writing group for patients and clients.

Learn how to screen and select participants who would benefit from participating in a writing group, set appropriate group boundaries, facilitate effective group sessions, and offer appropriate feedback on writing within sessions. In addition, approaches for encouraging patients and clients to engage in expressive and therapeutic writing activities on their own will also be explored.

The first session will review the evidence base for expressive and therapeutic writing uses, introduce the goal of developing narrative competence, walk through a writing exercise, and examine a writing sample for close reading and group discussion. The second session will focus on facilitating writing groups with prompts and suggestions for writing exercises and guidance on nurturing safety within writing group environments.

Target Audience

This offering is designed for practitioners from all clinical disciplines who are interested in using expressive and therapeutic writing to help their patients and clients navigate illness and recovery.

Session Dates & Times

Dates and times for the two online sessions:

• Tuesday, January 21, 2025 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm ET
• Tuesday, February 18, 2025 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm ET

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this offering, participants will be able to:

• Identify the health benefits of therapeutic and expressive writing
• Describe key strategies for screening and facilitating writing groups with patients/clients
• Demonstrate sample therapeutic writing activities including the provision of supportive feedback

Fee

The program fee is $510 CAD plus 13% HST.

Cancellation

Cancellations will be accepted until January 14, 2025 and are subject to a processing fee of $60 plus applicable taxes. Refunds will not be processed after this date.

Requests for cancellation must be made in writing to cpd.programs@utoronto.ca .

Registrations are not transferable.

The University of Toronto reserves the right to cancel events. Registrants will be notified at the earliest possible date in the event of a cancellation. Registration fees for events cancelled by the University will be refunded; however, the University will not be liable for any loss, damages or other expenses that such cancellations may cause.

Instructor

A leader in health humanities and narrative-based medicine, Allan Peterkin is a full Professor of psychiatry and family medicine at the University of Toronto. He founded the Program in Health, Arts and Humanities and served as the inaugural Humanities Faculty Lead for Undergraduate Medical Education, Postgraduate Medical Education and Continuing Professional Development.

He has always been interested in the interface between medicine and storytelling. For twenty years he co-led a therapeutic writing group for men and women living with HIV. A collection of these patients’ narratives was published as “Still Here-a Post-Cocktail Aids Anthology” (Life Rattle Press). He has provided training and supervision to clinicians on the use of the Narrative Competence Psychotherapy Group Model. He has published and presented on practical strategies for narrative-based medicine and the use of therapeutic writing to improve well-being including co-authorizing “Finding a voice: revisiting the history of therapeutic writing” (Medical Humanities, 2009) and “A pilot study of a narrative competence group to enhance coping and quality of life in patients with HIV” (Arts & Health, 2012).

For more information on Dr. Peterkin’s publications on narrative-based medicine, health humanities, and medical education, please visit www.peterkinmedicine.com

Accreditation

Continuing Professional Development (CPD), Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, is fully accredited by the Committee on Accreditation of Continuing Medical Education (CACME), a subcommittee of the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS). This standard allows CPD to review and assess educational activities based on the criteria established by The College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (Royal College) has established agreements with each of the American Medical Association (AMA), and the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME®) where activities approved for Royal College MOC Credits are eligible for conversion to AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ and UEMS-EACCME European CME Credit (ECMEC®) credits, respectively.