Title: Transformative learning through creative life writing : exploring the self in the learning process /
Authors: Hunt, Celia.
Year: 2013
Subjects: Transformative learning; Self.; Literature; Creative writing Study and teaching; Creative writing Study and teaching; Transformative learning.; Self in literature.
Abstract: "Arising from a research project conducted over two years, Transformative Learning through Creative Life Writing examines the effects of fictional autobiography on adult learners' sense of self. Starting from a teaching and learning perspective, Hunt draws together ideas from psychodynamic psychotherapy, literary and learning theory, and work in the cognitive and neurosciences of the self and consciousness, to argue that creative life writing undertaken in a supportive learning environment, alongside opportunities for critical reflection, has the power to transform the way people think and learn. It does this by opening them up to a more embodied self-experience, which increases their awareness of the source of their thinking in bodily feeling and enables them to develop a more reflexive approach to learning. Hunt locates this work within recent developments in the influential field of transformative learning. She also identifies it as a form of therapeutic education arguing, contrary to those who say that this approach leads to a diminished sense of self, that it can help people to develop a stronger sense of agency, whether for writing or learning or relations with others."--Publisher website.
Contents: Creative life writing for personal and professional development -- Expanding the psyche through the learning process -- Finding a stance as a writer: Simon's story -- Reconnecting with the felt body for writing and learning: Maria's story -- Reconceptualising the self in time: Susanna's story -- Understanding mechanisms of change in transformative learning -- Reflexivity and the psyche as a dynamic system -- Vicissitudes of the dynamic psyche and their consequences for learning and creativity -- Developing reflexivity through creative life writing -- Reflexivity and group process -- Reflection and reflexivity -- Challenges of transformative learning through creative life writing -- Is transformative learning a form of therapeutic education?