Writing and Therapy

The narrator in my novel goes to therapy. He sits in a room and talks about his past. He tries to understand how he got to where he is. How the choices he made years ago continue to shape his present.

Writing fiction is not therapy. But there are similarities. Both involve looking at the past with fresh eyes. Both require honesty. Both ask you to sit with difficult truths. Both offer the possibility of understanding, if not resolution.

When I write, I am not working through my own life. I am creating something separate. But the process of creating requires me to understand my characters. To see their motivations. To trace the connections between their past and present. To sit with their pain and their joy without turning away.

This work is not easy. It requires patience. It requires the willingness to look at things that are uncomfortable. It requires the recognition that understanding is often partial, incomplete, ongoing.

Therapy, like writing, is not about finding answers. It is about asking better questions. About learning to see patterns. About recognizing the ways we tell ourselves stories. About understanding that the stories we tell shape how we live.

In my novel, therapy becomes a frame. A way of organizing memory. A way of making sense of experience. A way of allowing the past and present to coexist. This structure felt necessary because it mirrors how we actually understand our lives. Not in linear progression, but in moments of recognition. In the slow accumulation of insight. In the difficult work of being present to what is.