Customer Reviews

A Healing Journey: Writing Together Through Breast Cancer

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I bought this book to better understand the cancer experience of a beloved friend. Little did I know that my own life would be changed by reading A Healing Journey. This is a book to give to sisters, best friend, your mother. These stories made me exquisitely aware of life's abundance -- its joyful, glorious, sometime painful abundance. A must read.

Sharon Bray has written a powerful and tender book about healing through writing and sharing life stories. Bray intimately shares her own story along with members of the breast cancer writing group she founded and leads. I am profoundly touched by the courage, love and faith these women find through the healing power of writing and reading aloud together. With her extensive background in psychology and education, Bray makes a clear distinction between writing as healing as in the Amherst Writers & Artists method she draws on, and writing as therapy. She explains the basics of leading a writing group and includes the Amherst Writers & Artists' twelve basic principles for a healthy workshop. This book is a valuable tool for anyone looking for insight and inspiration for workshop facilitation. It is also a book that not only abounds with the human spirit; it leaps off the page and enters your heart. It is a gift. Thank you, Sharon Bray and the Scribbling Women of CBHP for your compassion, wisdom and eloquence.

Beautifully written and extremely well organized, A Healing Journey is a must have for anyone working with therapeutic writing groups. The author is herself a breast cancer survivor and a senior partner of Amherst Writers and Artists, thus lending a unique and credible perspective to the topic. The book chronicles Bray's experience as a writing group leader and includes short essays and poetry from group participants. It is packed with moving accounts and practical guidance to assist others in starting or improving their own writing groups. Chapters include such titles as When Writing is Healing, Writing Together, and Writing in Sanctuary.

Sharon Bray's (compact in size, not in its message) book is packed with the honest voices of women speaking through their writings, telling stories from their hearts. Those who have experienced breast cancer will find this book and its guidance comforting, useful and ultimately healing. Those who teach in the field will find in this book new and useful ways to work with those facing life-threatening illnesses! A wonderful reading experience!

This is a wonderful book, sharing the powerful experience and stories of Sharon Bray's "scribbling women", and a detailed description of the Amherst Writers & Artists method as a means to open doors and draw out beautiful words. I've been taking one of Sharon's writing classes over this past year and it has been a true gift to be able to engage in this creative process among women who have been through and understand the impact of living with breast cancer. Sharon is an amazing storyteller in her own right, and the chance to hear and learn from her has been very rewarding and thought-provoking. If you are directly involved with someone living with cancer, living with it yourself, or even if not, this book has something meaningful to tell you.

Read this book; it is moving, insightful and useful. One minute I spot a great idea or concept about writing techniques that I can use in my teaching of psychology. The next minute, my eyes are flooded with tears (hey! I'm a guy and I teach coaching and business psychology) after reading poetry that has been written on the fly in groups. For example, there's a doctor who has been too busy to get her own mammograms. She tells the group she's a scientist and can't write. Then her group is asked to imagine and write about someone's hands-so she writes a quick poem of a recent memory of watching her son play his bass at a concert and noticing he has outgrown his suit. Oh--and will he be OK when he goes away to Harvard this September because she knows she will die before Christmas? Gulp. You won't forget that. Most of this book describes the process a writing group leader can use to draw extraordinary writing and emotion out of ordinary people--but be careful. The powerful examples of writing by these ordinary people will floor you. Is it the threat of disfigurement and death that does it, or the writing group? You decide; it's worth a read, and another read. Don't try to quickly skim this book for 3 or 4 usable insights and ideas and then pass it on to your daughter as if it were new (I'm not worried--she never reads these reviews because she gets all her books from me). This is a keeper-so get your own copy Claire.

A dear friend and breast cancer survivor sent me this book. Although I have several female friends who have been victimized by this scourge, I was unprepared for the revelations in the book and the undeniable positive effects of writing together. The insights and shared experiences are as valuable to men (fathers, sons, husbands and friends) as they are to women. Reading it certainly rearranged my own life priorities. Unequivocally recommended. Brian Oliver (...)

I have taught writing for healing for 13 years with a variety of groups (chronic illness and pain, breast cancer,etc.) and Sharon's book explains the basics of writing as a healing tool, gives suggestions for forming a group and includes writing exercises that can be used alone or with others. There is also examples of writing from women in the groups Sharon leads. This is more than a "how to" book, Sharon's story and voice make the book an enjoyable read! I highly recommend A Healing Journey.