Linking Lives: Invitations to Clients to Write Letters to Clients— Julia Gerlitz

This article describes an innovative form of therapeutic letter writing in which clients are invited to write letters to each other, rather than the more traditional narrative practice of therapists writing letters to clients. Two clients who both struggle with chronic pain and caregiver stress are consulting with the same counsellor and begin to write therapeutic letters to each other anonymously, with their counsellor passing the letters between them.

Examples of the client written letters are included in the body of the article as well as the clients’ responses about their experiences with this innovative form of narrative letter writing. The author describes the intention behind this practice and offers suggestions based on her experience of how to facilitate the process. Most notably, this form of client generated letter writing decentres the therapist and highlights the client’s voice, provides an opportunity for clients to strengthen their preferred narrative, and creates communities of concern in which clients build relationships with each other that assist with decreasing the isolation and influence of problems in their lives. The article aims to inspire fellow narrative practitioners to link the lives of their clients through client-written therapeutic letters.