Saturday, 7^th November, 2015, 10am-5pm
Scarborough Counselling & Psychotherapy Training Institute (SCPTI)
1 Westbourne Grove, Scarborough

This one-day experiential workshop will explore how poetry could be a tool for greater self-reflection, insight and healing within therapeutic environments. Poetry is sometimes seen as high-brow, however, at times of great joy or great distress, we often gain solace from both writing poems for ourselves or from finding that a poet has already put down just the right words for us. How can we take this impulse and develop it into being a part of a more conscious journey towards greater understanding? No prior knowledge of poetry - either reading or writing it - is required, only an openness and a willingness to experiment with words.

Kate has been a writer for 30 years. Her non-fiction, short stories and poems have been published and she has created two audio installations using poetry for Coastival. In 2013, her book Pathways through writing blocks in academic environments was published by Sense Publishers. She has just published her first novel, a crime novel exploring mental health and marginalisation, The Art of the Imperfect,available on Kindle & in paperback from Amazon.

She is a trained as a psychotherapeutic counsellor. She has been working within therapeutic environments with creative writing for over 10 years. She has run a group for people with depression and anxiety for four years and has been poet in residence for Hospital Arts in North Yorkshire working with terminally ill patients. She has also facilitated training for clinical psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors and writers. She is a member of Lapidus (Literary Arts for Personal Development, www.lapidus.org.uk). See her blog at www.writingourselveswell.co.uk