Welcome to Lapidus International
The Writing For Wellbeing Community
Lapidus International is a membership organisation open to everyone with an interest in writing for wellbeing.
We support and champion writing for wellbeing through development opportunities, exclusive member events, access to the latest research, and more.
We offer a supportive network to enhance both personal and professional writing practice.
What Is Writing For Wellbeing?
Writing for wellbeing is the use of words to explore thoughts, express emotions, and support personal growth. It’s not about perfect grammar or literary skill, it’s about connecting with yourself through journalling, poetry, storytelling, or reflective writing. Whether used in a group setting or privately, writing can be a powerful tool to process experiences, build resilience, and find clarity. At Lapidus, we celebrate writing in all its forms as a gentle, creative way to nurture emotional, mental, and social wellbeing.
Upcoming Events
This long-established and ground-breaking course for personal and professional development will provide you with an understanding of therapeutic and reflective writing techniques for working personally or with groups.
The course explores the main approaches in therapeutic and reflective writing by encouraging you to explore your own life through writing. Weekly readings offer a theoretical background for those intending to apply their learning to others.
Delivered online over eight weeks, the course has been designed by Lapidus members Victoria Field and Anne Taylor and is tutored by Kate McBarron — three highly experienced facilitators and teachers in the field.
In this workshop, reclaim your voice. Begin testing out what you have to say, and experiment with new metaphors and motifs to do justice to the vastness of your health or care story.
Here our focus is on finding a language, style and voice for your writing about health and illness that best reflects your story. How might you capture living with an illness, being disabled, or providing care using words that adequately reflect the complexity of your experience?
We’ll consider the expressive potential of creative writing as a corrective to prejudice and ignorance. We will also explore texts that write beyond the simple binaries of being well and unwell, life and death, fighter or victim. Contemporary works which upend conventional norms around writing about health and illness will be a stimulus in the reading material we draw from.
Course Outline
– Session two of a series of live zoom workshops, beginning on February 18th, with tutor of expressive and therapeutic writing, and coach, Andrew Kauffmann. Including a combination of reading, discussion and writing exercises.
– Reading material provided outside of the Zoom session
– Resources on telling your story within safe boundaries and the benefits to expressive writing on health and care experiences
Content rooted in the social model of disability, open to all people with health and care needs, and those who provide care
Paced to be a comfortable writing experience, suited to writers of all levels. There will be a short comfort break. There is no expectation to be on camera, if you don’t feel comfortable appearing on camera. Neither will there be any expectations around sharing what you’ve written with other participants. There will be an added focus in this coming series on writing in a range of experimental forms, mixing genres and without constraints or concern for convention on how we might write our story.
A structured 4-week course exploring self-compassion through creative writing and embodied practice. Develop a kinder inner voice, reframe patterns of self-criticism, and build sustainable practices for emotional resilience.
Drawing from Paul Gilbert’s Compassion Focused Therapy, Kristin Neff’s self-compassion research, and person-centred approaches, this course integrates psychological frameworks with creative exploration including two-pen dialogue, visual mapping, embodied awareness, and collaborative poetry.
The course is limited to 8 participants to help foster community and a sense of safety, and all participants receive a comprehensive 47-page companion guide. The guide contains exercises, weekly trackers, frameworks, and written and video resources for ongoing practice.
The course is designed with neurodivergent processing and varied energy levels in mind, with built-in safety supports and permission to adapt.
No previous writing experience required. Limited to 8 participants for intimate, supported exploration. Zoom link will be provided the day before the course starts.
Book direct: https://buy.stripe.com/cNiaEZ9fC6Un1N28KM9Zm08
Or via my website where the full course outline can be downloaded: https://www.katepoll.co.uk/#compassionjournalling
Limited concession rate places available: £149: https://buy.stripe.com/cNiaEZ9fC6Un1N28KM9Zm08
An introduction to embodied writing. Let’s discover the rich benefits of attuning to what we think and feel, and afford ourselves the space to listen. Express our individual stories, draw from our challenging feelings, and write without shame. It’s your turn to have your voice heard.
We will begin by looking inward, considering our individual experience, and what about it we might hope to express or share. We will consider our experiences of health and care as platforms for storytelling, asking ourselves, ‘what is the story we might wish to write?’ and ‘how might we tell these stories?’ If there are obstacles holding us back, we’ll briefly consider ‘what are they and how might we write about them, or in spite of them?’
Reading samples will provide us with impetus for new writing. We’ll consider works rooted in somatic storytelling, writing from a felt sense of our bodies and what our bodies might be telling us. We will also step back to reflect – ‘why write about health and illness at all?’ Learn the proven benefits to our own health and wellbeing when we write in an expressive or therapeutic way.
Course Outline
Session one of a series of three live zoom workshops with tutor of expressive and therapeutic writing, and coach, Andrew Kauffmann. Including a combination of reading, discussion and writing exercises. Later workshops on writing using metaphor in bringing our health stories to the page, and writing ethically and thoughtfully from challenging life material, will be taking place on March 11th and April 1st, also on Zoom, between 2pm and 3.30pm GMT.
If you’re curious about friendship, interested in reflective writing, or are simply looking for a gentle, structured space to think alongside others, you are very welcome to join us for this workshop.
Join us for 90 minutes of creative exploration through writing prompts and collaborative practice. The session will include short writing prompts, quiet time to write, and moments of sharing and reflection. No writing experience is needed, and there’s no pressure to perform or get things “right.”
Facilitators Alison Cable and Kate Poll will be reflecting in depth on friendship and the workshop in the forthcoming issue of Lapidus Magazine. Those attending the online session will have the opportunity to contribute a short poem or reflection to the piece if they wish.
Numbers are intentionally kept small to allow for genuine connection – book your place early.
Find out more about the topic of friendship in reflective writing in this recent blog post.
Take a mindful pause in your week and join us for Write Here, Right Now — a calm, supportive online space for Lapidus members to come together and write.
Hosted once a month on a Wednesday lunchtime, this hour-long session offers a simple structure: a warm welcome from a Lapidus facilitator, a chance to briefly connect with fellow members, and then uninterrupted self-directed writing time. Whether you’re journalling, reflecting, or working on a creative project, writing in the quiet company of others can bring focus, motivation, and a sense of shared purpose.
We meet on Zoom. No pressure, no prompts — just you, your words, and a community that understands the power of writing for wellbeing.
Event details
This edition of Write Here, Right Now takes place on Wednesday 14th January 2026, from 1pm –2pm GMT (UK time).
The facilitator will be Alison Cable.
Please send any questions ahead of the event to membership@lapidus.org.uk (responses on Tuesdays & Fridays).
Joining the event
There is no need to reserve your space — simply turn up on the day using the Zoom link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81520281563
Meeting ID: 815 2028 1563
Join Lapidus International...
…from as little as £3.50 per month.
As a Lapidus Member, you are part of a supportive, international writing for wellbeing community who believe in the power of using words to enhance and transform.
You’ll receive a monthly newsletter, get discounts on events and training, have access to our online library of Lapidus journals and more. All for as little as £3.50 per month!
Lapidus News
Our latest members’ survey is now open for your feedback!
Our vision
In these times of global upheaval, where words can be debased, Lapidus International will not compromise.
We know that writing endures as a way to express suffering and joy, healing and belonging in the intersection of personal circumstances and social conditions.
Through practice, research, publishing, and partnerships, we recognise words and writing as an accessible force for wellbeing, activism and therapy.
Our membership reflects the voices of all communities, including those who have been discounted, prohibited, displaced and under-served.