Exploring creative writing as a tool to enhance mental health / Muhammad Ariff Mohd Hamdan and Mohd Azlan Shah Sharifudin

• Main Authors: Mohd Hamdan, Muhammad Ariff, Sharifudin, Mohd Azlan Shah
• Format: Book Section
• Language: English
• Published: Academy of Language Studies 2023
• Subjects: Poetry
• Online Access: https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/81970/1/81970.pdf; https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/81970/; https://irole-uitm.com/

This paper aims to promote and discuss creative writing as a tool to enhance mental health and wellbeing. Creative writing is seen as a means to convey emotions and ideas through an artistic approach and can be guided by experienced writers with or without the involvement of healthcare providers (King et al, 2013). Based on that premise, we have published an e-magazine which revolves around the theme of mental health to reach out to those struggling with mental health. This e-magazine attempts to function as a bibliotherapy through which the target audience can understand that they are not alone and possibly to support their recovery from mental illness too. Bibliotherapy has grown in popularity as a type of therapy in recent years. People experiencing mild to severe depression and anxiety may benefit from bibliotherapy strategies to improve their attitude and thinking (Spruce, 2016). The objectives of this project: (i) to raise the awareness of mental health amongst the public (ii) to explore the effectiveness of creative writing in managing mental. A mini survey was also conducted to learn about the awareness of general public on mental health and their interest in creative writing. Out of thirty four respondents, it was discovered that most of the respondents had experienced mental illness in one form or another, the percentage of which stands at 73.5%. Furthermore, a huge percentage of the respondents (88.2%) also claimed that they enjoy creating writing. However, due to limited audience, we are unable to gauge how much of a success the project has been in enhancing mental health.