The Power of Memoir: How to Write Your Healing Story

by Linda Myers

Overview

A groundbreaking work for healing long-term emotional problems

The Power of Memoir is a pioneering how-to book that provides a new step-by-step program to use memoir writing as a therapeutic process. By going through these steps you'll learn how to choose the significant milestones and turning points that make up a coherent story leading to a life-changing epiphany.

• Help uncover the secret stories that are the keys to healing
• Explore the dynamics and roles of dysfunctional families
• Heal old wounds, creating a better present and brighter future

Using many examples from her students and clients, the author shows how creative, well-planned, and carefully researched memoir writing can offer a process for sorting out the truth from lies and family myths.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470508367
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	01/26/2010
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	373,867
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., is president of the National Association of Memoir Writers and a practicing psychotherapist. She is the author of Don't Call Me Mother: Breaking the Chain of Mother-Daughter Abandonment, which won the Gold Medal Award from the Bay Area Independent Publishing Association in 2007.

Read an Excerpt

Click to read or download

Table of Contents

Foreword xi
by Kathleen Adams

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction xv

Part 1 Eight Steps to Writing a Healing Memoir 1

Step 1 Understanding Your Reasons for Writing 3

Step 2 Doing Your Research 16

Step 3 Planning Your Memoir 29

Step 4 The Psychology of Memoir Writing 48

Step 5 The Dark Stuff 65

Step 6 Organizing the Narrative Arc 79

Step 7 To Publish—or Not 98

Step 8 The Power of Writing to Heal 121

Part 2 Spirituality, Therapy, and Stories 145

Chapter 1 Spirituality, Meditation, and Inner Listening 147

Chapter 2 For Therapists Who Use the Healing Power of Memoir 156

Chapter 3 Stories from the Workshops 166

Epilogue 213

Resources 219

Recommended Reading 221

Reader’s Guide 227

Bibliography 231

About the Author 237

Index 239