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Life review, traumatic memories & therapeutic writing

“ It is a truism ... that men who are comfortable with their own aggression respond more lovingly to the world in general. ” - George Vaillant

This section includes charts to help clarify life history, traumatic events, childhood experiences, and therapeutic writing.  It overlaps with some of the handouts given in the linked "PTSD assessment, images, memories & information" section .  I use "therapeutic" writing as a general term covering all types of writing that have been shown to be helpful & "therapeutic".  When describing the form of therapeutic writing, developed by Jamie Pennebaker and other researchers, that focuses particularly on writing one's "deepest thoughts & feelings" about life traumas & difficulties, I tend to use the term "expressive" writing (to distinguish it, for example, from other forms of therapeutic writing focusing on diverse topics such as "best possible selves", "intensely positive

Introduction & monitoring

"These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions" ... we are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

- Aristotle/Durant

Here are a series of forms that I use almost every session with clients, or for screening and orientation at the start of therapy:

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