ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. Psychologists have noted the "supporting role" that writing contributes to the learning process, in the form of scribbles, note-taking, skeleton plans, a role that is unique in so far as writing is much more than "talk recorded". The authors include therapists, analysts, academics, and novelists, who offer their reflections on the broad theme of writing—its challenges, pleasures, anxieties, purposes, and our relationship, as authors and readers, to the written word. Jeremy Holmes gets us off to a fine start, imaginatively comparing the processes of writing with psychodynamic therapy; the blank piece of paper that confronts the writer and the soon-to-be-used clinical session. He suggests that both writing and therapy can be conceived as "prostheses", as externalized, socially constructed structures whose purpose is to help us develop and to better "see" ourselves. Attachment theory is his framework and inspiration.
