FOCUS-DIRECTED WRITING™ PUTS YOUR HEALING IN YOUR HANDS

What is focus-directed™Writing and who is it for?

Focus-Directed Writing™ puts your healing process in your hands. It is a specialized form of guided self-exploration and self-renovation through highly-targeted writing, and examination of that writing with Augusten Burroughs, Hon.D.Litt.

While it's been clinically demonstrated that even ordinary journal writing can relieve anxiety,* Focus-Directed Writing™ was designed to do more than be a release valve for stress; it was created to generate profound personal change.

Focus-Directed Writing™ is for those who are psychologically ambitious and wish to take charge of their own journey of healing and recovery. Focus-Directed Writing™ is not only an excellent complement to traditional therapy, it's something life-changing you can perform on your own.

If what you seek is profound personal transformation, Focus-Directed Writing™ may be the innovative answer.

From ptsd management to decision making: focus-directed writing™ is your tool for emotional management and thought processing.

Focus-Directed Writing™ isn't like sitting down to write a college paper or a novel. It's a daily writing technique that you "carry with you" and engage in throughout the day, in bursts, when needed. The technique may be useful for relieving anxiety, processing trauma and as a tool for coping with the daily challenges of living with conditions like PTSD & BPD. It was created to help one refine one's thinking process to reach more honest and therefore more accurate conclusions. When you are faced with a stressful situation, a complex decision, or even a bad mood, Focus-Directed Writing™ allows you to quantify the "threat" you are experiencing and process your thoughts and emotions to maximize the situational outcome. Whether you write on your phone, in a notepad, on a laptop or tablet (or even the occasional emergency paper napkin), Focus-Directed Writing™ integrates effortlessly into your life. After learning the basic techniques, the process will become second nature to you.

FOCUS-DIRECTED WRITING™ IS A SIMPLE BUT HIGHLY PRECISE & powerful METHOD OF GAINING GREATER SELF-KNOWLEDGE.THE RESULT IS PROFOUND PERSONAL ACCEPTANCE AND ACCESS TO A RICHER AND MORE REWARDING LIFE.

"I created Focus-Directed Writing™ to process and survive the extraordinary abuse I experienced as a child. Over the decades, the technique has become richer and more capable. From dealing with relationship issues, complex decision making, goal definition, and personal life optimization, Focus-DirectedWriting™ is the simple tool that provides profound results."
-Augusten Burroughs

The four pillars of the focus directed writing™program

IDENTIFY

What's the problem? What's the trauma? What's the pain? What's the choice? What's the plan? The first step in Focus-Directed Writing™ is to zero-in on the primary issue. This becomes the first focal point of the writing process. Sometimes, a single clear focus isn't obvious. Where there are conflicting or intense emotions, or recognizing the truth of one's circumstances has consequences too great to bear, the "issue" one needs to address can be entirely invisible. In that case, you will begin at step two without a focus! But don't worry, just because you aren't able to identify the point of focus you need to work on doesn't mean some part of you doesn't know. The work involved in step two will help untangle the thoughts and emotions and reveal a clear, objective focal point.

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The next step is to engage in a writing technique I call sensorystreaming. This isn't writing anybody will ever read, so spelling, grammer, and other "writerly" elements don't matter. In fact, they get in the way. The goal is to write as fast as you can for ten minutes without pausing in order for below-the-surface information to reach the top: your consciousness. High-speed writing without regard to spelling, style, grammar, syntax, etc. is "stream of consciousness" writing, a term that dates to 1890 when it appeared in William James's textbook, The Principals of Psychology. The phrase then meant something different from what we think of today. Fast, unfettered writing that is unfocused can reveal a focal point for further exploration, while focused sensory streaming writing "elaborates" on the subject and often brings hidden material to the surface.

ELEMENTAL TRUTH

III

We are all accustomed to the phrases, "my truth" or "their truth." But truth is objective, never subjective. In other words: the tree either fell over onto the parked car or it did not. What is subjective is why the tree fell; how it looked as it came down. In order for Focus-Directed Writing™ to work, reaching the rock-bottom truth of your circumstances is essential. Elemental, indivisible, rock-bottom truth leads to epiphany; and epiphany is the spark of change. Because once you know something, you cannot un-know it; once you have seen the truth with your own eyes, you can no longer deny it. And when you have come to see that something is true and you can appreciate the magnitude of that truth, view the full impact it has had on your life, you are able to begin the process of assimilating the truth of your experience into your life. But it's not always so easy to find the truth, because it often hides behind what we think is true, have been told is true, have assumed to be true or was true at a previous point in time but no longer is. Focus-Directed Writing™is an ongoing process of inner exploration in search of the truth, and then writing about the truth you have discovered.

INTEGRATION

The reason healing depends upon locating the deepest truth of one's circumstances is so that one can fully see and feel the broad spectrum of impact that truth has had on one's life. In my own life, only when I was able to see the full magnitude of the abuse to which I was subjected as a child was I able to recognize that every trauma I endured, each act of abuse, every terrible thing that occurred, had a role in shaping me into the person I am today. "Accepting" the truth of one's circumstances means no longer fighting against reality; no longer living in denial, no longer minimizing the impact something or someone has had on our lives. Writing about our experience is the way we accept it. And by accepting what we have experienced, we gain depth, wisdom, perspective and freedom. We are no longer controlled by the events of the past.

COLLABORATION IS A POWERFUL TOOL When BOTH PEOPLE SHARE THE SAME VISION

The process of Focus-Directed Writing™ can be done alone, but I believe it's more powerful and effective when you work with a clinical partner: a licenced social worker, a clinical psychologist, or another mental health professional who can help you process the emotions that writing brings to the surface. Each person is unique and some individuals will not experience "triggering" or "trauma" when writing; but others may.

I am currently working on a book for mental health providers that they can add Focus-Directed Writing™ to their arsenal of helpful tools.

*Online Positive Affect Journaling in the Improvement of Mental Distress and Well-Being in General Medical Patients With Elevated Anxiety Symptoms: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial
Monitoring Editor: John Torous Reviewed by Thomas Arcury and Cheng K. Fred Wen Joshua M Smyth, PhD, 1,2 Jillian A Johnson, PhD,1 Brandon J Auer, PhD,2 Erik Lehman, MS,3 Giampaolo Talamo, MD,2 and Christopher N Sciamanna, MD, MPH2

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