Jay, Emmanuelle

The epistolary form in writing mediation as a response to traumatic intrusion - 2025.


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The aim of this article is to describe the therapeutic effects of the epistolary form as a writing exercise for women who have been victims of sexual abuse, within the context of one-to-one art therapy/psychotherapy mediated by writing. It does this by drawing on the particular case of a young woman. Thanks to the subjectivity and bonding work involved in the writing of these imaginary letters, the patient was able to restore movement, creativity, and continuity right where time, pleasure, and the notion of meaning had come to a halt, lost and frozen by the trauma’s intrusion. The epistolary form has been shown to have an encompassing and stimulating therapeutic function in supporting victims of sexual abuse and, from there, in treating the traumatic intrusion. The poetic letter can be considered as a lyrical envelope enabling communication between two parts of the self: the one that can express distress and the part that seeks to care for that suffering.