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The complete volume 2, Issue 2 of the Lapidus International Research and Innovation Community (LIRIC) research journal. Click to download, or you can read the online version here.

Volume 1, Issue 1 of the LIRIC Journal - the first issue launched in December 2020.

Hello and welcome to LIRIC Journal!
The papers on offer this issue speak to the range of interpretations of practice as research, moving between creative and therapeutic spaces but always demonstrating the ability to bring these together in work which seeks and celebrates connection, strength, and healing through creative practice.

This issue marks our third volume, and the diversity and quality of work included shows how we continue to attract high-quality writing and scholarship, and how the field of writing for wellbeing and CWTP (creative writing for therapeutic purposes) is growing.

Authors: Dr. Jeannie Wright and Dr. Poonam Madar

Born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952, she took as a pen name her maternal great grandmother’s name bell hooks and refused to capitalize it...

Author: Melanie Perry MSc

Abstract:

A regenring of a research project dissertation that explores the experience of women survivors of domestic abuse who had practised creative writing for therapeutic purposes—reading their written work at a spoken word poetry event and asking, What can we do as writing practitioners to support them? A case study using a phenomenological methodology.

Author: Fiona Hamilton

Abstract:

This essay looks at medical students’ poetry on a curated website and design of a course for medical undergraduates called Poetry of Medicine. A close reading of poetry and commentaries on the website outofourheads.net informed aims and design of the course, which had three strands: 1) study of poetics and analysis of poems; 2) practical exploration of applications of poetry within medicine; 3) writing poems and reflecting on them, and reading work by a range of poets. This essay focuses on the third of these. Recurring themes in students’ writing and reflections suggested that writing poetry can offer an outlet for expression and a way of processing personal and professional experiences that may be helpful as a supportive resource for students.

Authors: Mel Parks, Jessica Moriarty, Hannah Vincent

Abstract:

This article reports on a UK-wide, transdisciplinary project between creative writers and social scientists that was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), exploring how storytelling workshops with women who experienced gender-based violence (GBV) in lockdown could be used to inform and change social and legal policies. The article is split into two sections: in the first, we give an outline of the project and how the creative workshops were devised, and in the second, we adopt a trioethnographic stance, enabling us to contextualise and present our dialogues that 1) reflect on our lived experience of devising the workshops and 2) draw on interview data with writers and artists who coled the project to make recommendations for workshop facilitation with people who have experienced GBV.

Author: Geoff Mead

Abstract:

In this paper, I share the findings of a heuristically informed self-study exploring the potential of creative dialogues with characters from Homer’s Odyssey to support the development of a healthy narrative identity in late adulthood. Feeling stuck in a persistent dysfunctional narrative, I was interested in trying to access the wisdom of the mundus imaginalis, described as a third realm between mind and matter with its own nonliteral ontological reality, to find new possibilities. The study also drew on dialogical self theory (DST), which suggests that our narrative identity is constituted through ongoing ‘conversations’ between the multiple internal and external voices of a decentred self, rather than the unfolding of a single story. I devised methods (including collage, poetry, and creative dialogues) with the intention of enabling autonomous mythological characters to advise and guide me ‘in their own voices.’ The cumulative effect of these imaginal encounters was both profound and beneficial, helping me shift my narrative identity from that of a life mired in loss and grief to one characterised by gratitude and acceptance. I conclude that creative writing for therapeutic purposes practitioners could use similar methods to benefit others, with the caveat that they require considerable time and commitment.

Author: Kim Etherington

Book Review
A Story of a Marriage Through Dementia and Beyond: Love in a Whirlwind

By Laurel Richardson 2023, 104 pages (paperback) ISBN 9781032181158 Taylor & Francis Ltd
Reviewed by Kim Etherington, PhD Professor Emerita, University of Bristol, UK