Samuel Tongue

Yes.

And is that something that you commonly do, that you have different art forms, different media that people can explore?

Yeah, and I imagine that it also gives participants in the group a bit more freedom so they don't necessarily have to respond verbally, they can respond visually, they can respond through those different art forms.

Yes.

And so when you're working in these groups, is there a sense in which it's not about the kind of quality of response, it's about the resonance of the response?

You're not asking people to produce an amazing piece of work as a response to the prompts.

It's much more, it's actually deeper than that.

It's more about that recognition that we've described or a sense of community or a sense of being seen.

Yeah, is that something that kind of...

There's a lot of freedom in these groups, which is very, very attractive.

I can imagine that there's been quite a lot of research around the impact that these workshops have on people's well-being.

That's a really nice way of putting it, like, yeah, that kind of finding their own integrity, finding depths within themselves in whatever situation they might be in at that point to write their way or visualise their way or, yeah, creatively find a way through, yeah.

Yes.

Where are some of the places that you've facilitated these workshops?

Quite a learning moment as a facilitator.

But that hints at something else that must be quite difficult as a facilitator of such workshops with people in very difficult circumstances.

How do you kind of protect your own energies or facilitate without losing yourself?

I didn't realize that having poaching skills was part of the CV of a facilitator for Words for Wellbeing, but it makes sense.

It makes sense.

So that was in the early 90s, you were saying?