Writing Is Good Medicine^®

Celia Engel Bandman, in her role as Medical Humanist, offers workshops in Writing is Good Medicine^®. These workshops help the writer to explore the lived experience of illness and can help to improve communication between patients, loved ones and medical providers. In Ms. Bandman’s own words, “Putting words on paper can help to better understand and give meaning to the experience of illness for patients and the doctors who care for them.”

In her workshops, Bandman will often use a quote from literature, a poem or a patient’s words as a prompt for the writing exercise. For example, in Anatole Broyard’s Intoxicated by My Illness, he writes, “Stories are antibodies against illness and pain. Language, speech, stories or narratives are the most effective ways to keep our humanity alive. A sick person can make a story, a narrative out of his illness as a way of trying to detoxify it.” Workshops participants might use such a prompt to write about what keeps their humanity alive.

These programs have been offered at hospitals and universities, community centers and conferences and are now offered online.

For more information, please contact us.