SCRIPTOTHERAPY - THERAPEUTIC WRITING AS A COUNSELING ADJUNCT

Major perspectives concerning the use of writing in counseling are giv en, with the goal of clarifying the nature of what has proved to be a useful but vague and poorly defined technique. This article reviews th e practice of what this author calls ''scriptotherapy'' and cites exam ples. Practitioners and researchers have tended to avoid the problem o f defining scriptotherapy or establishing guidelines for its use, perh aps because systematic empirical research that supports the value of t herapeutic writing has been lacking. Drawing, however from the increas ing flow of both anecdotal and controlled studies that point to the sp ecific benefits of writing, the author proposes recommendations for th e use of scriptotherapy.