“Pick up your pencil and let’s turn lead into gold”.
Jon is a psychodynamic coach and journaling facilitator. He draws on a range of psychological models in his work, with a particular interest in Carl Jung’s ideas – as well as his emphasis on warmth, playfulness, creativity and humour.
He teaches for the Therapeutic Writing Institute and has devised journaling workshops for a wide range of populations, including teens transitioning out of the care system, older women caregivers and inmates of His Majesty’s Prisons. His poetry has been widely published and he is a contributor to Writing for Wellbeing: Theory, Research, and Practice (Routledge 2023).
The Long Game: Writing to Become
Journaling is a great navigator for helping us make sense of today. But what happens when we keep writing over months, years, a lifetime? What new directions may slowly emerge from our day-to-day jottings, and how might our journals help us intuit and identify our own authentic path through life?
Carl Jung, whose own journal entries led to his celebrated Red Book and were fundamental in shaping the psychology he went on to develop, called this lifelong project ‘individuation’: the process of becoming more fully and consciously ourselves.
In this lively, interactive workshop, we’ll explore how our journals can become both a companion in that adventure and a guiding star on the road ahead.
Along the way, we’ll encounter James Hillman’s acorn, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s needle, Robert A. Johnson’s mandorla model, and William Stafford’s thread.
Through poetry, a range of depth-orientated writing exercises, conversation and some shining glints of Jungian psychology, we’ll explore the value of taking the long view: how, by keeping certain symbols and models in mind, what we write today can bring us solace and understanding in the short term while helping us enjoy a growing sense of purpose and meaning over the years ahead.
As Jung said, ‘No other way is like yours… You must fulfil the way that is in you.’
Come and take the long view of your journaling practice, and see what light, depth and riches may lie ahead – especially for you.
Date: TBD
Time: TBD