Poet Catharine Murray describes how writing helped her heal from unspeakable loss—the death of her 6 year old son. She shares three poems that illustrate the evolution of her grief and her ongoing healing.
Writing as a Way to Heal
Telling Secrets with Evan Imber-Black
Family therapist and author Evan Imber-Black talks about how to tell a family secret thoughtfully and well. She tells stories from her work about the impact of secrets on family members, creating ever widening circles of silence and distance in relationships. Children may not know a secret, but their behavior is nonetheless deeply affected by …read more »
Holocaust Survivor Testimonies with Lawrence L. Langer
This episode of Safe Space Radio features Professor Lawrence L. Langer discussing his book Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory. Professor Langer developed courses on the literature of atrocity to try and help people find a way to imagine the Holocaust, using stories from survivors. He remembers hearing stories of such horror that the teller …read more »
Illness Stories with Art Frank
Author Art Frank describes his own experience with an early heart attack and later cancer. He describes the way the medical world can be oblivious to the patient’s needs and subjective experience, and the importance of finding your own voice after your body has been colonized by treatment. He offered examples of the ways that …read more »
Secrets, Confiding, and Health with Jamie Pennebaker
This episode features an interview with author and social psychologist Jamie Pennebaker about his research into the benefits of confiding painful experiences. Jamie suggests that one of the reasons that childhood sexual abuse may be so destructive is because it is so often kept secret. He describes experiments where people are invited to write for …read more »
Telling Difficult Stories with Laura Simms
Healing on the Blank Page with Diane Morrow
Parenting and Cancer with Susan Conley
Susan Conley is author of The Foremost Good Fortune and co-founder of The Telling Room in Portland, Maine. In this interview she talks about coping with breast cancer in China while parenting two young boys, and how writing helped her survive. Susan describes her decision to write as honestly as possible, exposing less-than-ideal parenting or …read more »
