Unconventional Revision: MFA vs. Therapy

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For emerging writers, often the advice is “find your voice,” but it’s hard to know what that actually means. In the mid 2000s, I began seeking therapy for anxiety and depression, and my doctor gave me writing assignments: He’d ask me to fictionalize events in my real life that had been painful as a way to reframe the narratives. He’d also ask me to write happy endings or to write myself as the person I wanted to become, rather than the person I currently was.

Most writers are familiar with journaling, and many writers are familiar with writing in order to process. By the time I was in treatment, I already had an MFA—and with that came significant revision experience. But my therapy assignments dug deeper than anything I would have ever been willing to share in grad school workshops, and one of them became my first published work, another the opening story to my debut collection, and another the genesis for a novel. But before that, I was just another