Harness the Healing Power of Words:
Transform Your Practice Through Expressive Writing

The prevalence of chronic pain is rising, and, as therapists, the likelihood of treating clients with persistent or intractable pain is high, even when pain is not the presenting clinical issue. This 3-hour virtual workshop for counselors and psychotherapists working with clients impacted by chronic pain is based on the groundbreaking 6-week therapeutic writing workshop, Pain Meets Pen: Quieting Chronic Pain with Therapeutic Writing™, designed by the speaker. Through guided experiential writing exercises, psycho-education, and discussion, participants will learn how to use therapeutic writing interventions with other mindfulness practices to help clients achieve treatment goals such as self-regulation, processing grief and loss, and discovering or renewing life purpose. We will explore biases, stigma, culture, countertransference, and self-disclosure to enhance clinical development. With thoughtful therapeutic writing interventions from a biopsychosocial-spiritual lens, we can compassionately guide our clients with chronic pain to safely explore — and ultimately transform — their relationship with pain, the body, and life's meaning.

November 5, 2026 - 7:00 PM-9:00 PM ET

Presented by Kathleen (Kay) Adams, LPC, PTR 

Have any sort of modern life anxieties? Let's take a pause, take a breath, and bust some stress! In this 2-hour evening workshop, participants will be given a template for a 60- or 90-minute journal group on shifting a stressor into an ally. You will be expertly guided through the experience of creating new relationships with stress through short, structured, sequenced writes. We'll talk about ways you can use this ready-made template with clients and client groups in treatment. You'll leave the workshop with a simple yet powerful tool to share with clients and students, individually or in groups. 

November 6, 2026 - 10:00 AM-5:00 PM ET

Presented by Kathleen (Kay) Adams, LPC, PTR and Deborah Ross, CJT

The research on the neuroscience of wellbeing has exploded in the past 10 years.  This class explores the powerful concept of self-directed neuroplasticity using your pen as your guide. You'll learn and practice an updated toolbox of techniques, strategies, and experiences to inform your work with clients/students/groups. Meet the updated Reflection Write and learn why some common strategies are ineffective and can result in rumination. Welcome to the frontier of your brain on ink.   

November 7, 2026 - 10:00 AM-5:00 PM ET

Presented by Nancy Scherlong, LCSW, CHHC, SEP, CP, PTR/CJT-CM 

In this introductory didactic and experiential Master Class on the evolution, theory, and practice of biblio/poetry therapy, we'll begin with an exploration of the foundational Hynes/Hynes-Berry/Mazza models. Topics/activities will include the selection of poetry for therapeutic use, identifying goals for specific populations, as well as creating writing prompts and plans. The experiential component of this session will include group participation in a peer writing group.  Together, we will work with selected prompts that cultivate emotional presence and mindful awareness, as well as those that might even lead us to creative personal or legacy writing. Time will be allotted for group discussion of the process, personal responses, and the experienced group dynamic as they pertain to using this approach with various populations in counseling and psychotherapy. 

November 8, 2026 - 2:00 PM-5:00 PM ET

Presented by Michelle Bee, LMFT, CPT 

This 3-hour virtual workshop introduces clinicians to the therapeutic use of literature, poetry, reflective writing, and journal therapy as tools for emotional identification, insight development, and deeper processing of lived experience. Grounded in the interactive process model of biblio/poetry therapy, participants will engage with carefully selected literary and poetic texts that can be integrated into psychotherapy, support groups, wellness workshops, and trauma-informed care settings. Attendees will leave with adaptable tools and interventions to support emotional processing, self-awareness, meaning-making, client engagement, and therapeutic dialogue across diverse populations, including individuals navigating stress, grief, identity exploration, burnout, and emotional overwhelm.

November 12, 2026 - 10:00 AM-1:00 PM ET

Presented by Jennifer Zarin, LCAT, RDT 

In this experiential workshop, we'll cover what creative anxiety is- with the awareness that it can manifest in different ways for our clients. We'll use expressive writing, metaphor/guided imagery, and action as ways to meet one's creative anxiety (CA), learn more about CA's intentions, and purpose.  We'll move from this greater awareness of creative anxiety as character to meeting it where it's at/working with CA. These are tools you can use with clients and personally to move from a place of feeling stuck or procrastination to aligned and intentional action. 

November 13, 2026 - 2:00 PM-5:00 PM ET

Presented by Lynda Monk, MSW, RSW, CPCC 

In this engaging and experiential workshop, you will be introduced to Life Source Writing™, a 5-step guided journaling method designed to support insight, emotional well-being, and renewal for both therapists and the people they serve. Rooted in the principles of expressive arts and reflective practice, this session offers a practical and compassionate framework for bringing journaling into your clinical and creative work.

Through a blend of brief teaching, guided writing experiences, and optional sharing, you will explore how journal coaching can deepen self-awareness, enhance therapeutic presence, and offer clients a meaningful pathway to process emotions, access inner wisdom, and foster resilience. You will also be invited to reconnect with your own personal writing practice as a source of grounding and self-care in your professional life.

November 14, 2026 - 9:00 AM-1:00 PM ET

Presented by Nancy Scherlong, LCSW, CHHC, SEP, CP, PTR/CJT-CM 

Role fatigue is not just a workplace or pandemic phenomenon. Nearly everyone has felt out of balance and without enough time or energy for one of their preferred or necessary domains of life. Taking inventory of our various social, somatic, and psychological roles can help us to determine ways to refresh, rejuvenate, or revise various parts of ourselves in order to increase life satisfaction and to boost our overall wellness. Through Pennebaker’s evidence-based expressive writing techniques, restorative meditation and somatic practices, wellness-focused journal prompts and an array of poems and literary devices such as improvisational personification and dialogue, workshop participants will have an opportunity to define, explore and begin to repair boundary ruptures that may have occurred or worsened these past few years. This experiential 4-hour workshop will address micro, mezzo, and macro implications, including systemic breakdown and moral injury.

No prior experience with psychodrama or IFS is required, and sharing written material is always optional.