Welcome to Lapidus International
The Words and Writing For Wellbeing Community
Lapidus International is a membership organisation open to everyone with an interest in words for wellbeing.
We support and champion words and 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 wellbeing practice.
What Is Words and Writing For Wellbeing?
Words and 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. Find out more in our handy guide to writing for wellbeing.
Upcoming Events
Metaphors are not merely figures of speech. They also shape our conceptual frameworks and exert a significant influence on the ways we experience our lives and circumstances.
This is a 90-minute reflective writing workshop conducted once a month, in which we explore how metaphor-guided expressive writing can help us look inwards and process emotional experiences. The participants will engage in metaphor-guided writing exercises and explore ways to shape inner narratives. Grounded in principles of cognitive metaphor theory, the session will include a balance of theoretical knowledge and writing exercises, so that participants leave with practical reflective tools for introspection, emotional processing, and personal growth. The sessions are not recorded to ensure psychological safety and enable the participants to share their reflections in a gentle and empathetic co-created space. No prior writing experience required.
About Facilitator:
Dr. Ananya Mahapatra is a psychiatrist with over 14 years of experience in clinical and research work, currently engaged in person-centered clinical practice in New Delhi, India. A published writer and trained in Bibliotherapy, she works at the intersection of mental health, mindful reading, and reflective writing — exploring how stories, metaphors, and expressive writing can help individuals process grief, identity shifts, and transitions that often remain unspoken.
Her personal experiences with postpartum anxiety and working with clients during the COVID-19 pandemic inspired her to create The Life Sublime (www.thelifesublime.org). Through The Life Sublime, she hopes to reclaim storytelling as a quiet act of healing and utilize the therapeutic potential of words to restore a sense of self, voice, and connection in a fragmented world.
A lifelong reader, she believes in the transformative power of stories to heal, connect, and inspire. Her short fiction has been shortlisted and published in prestigious anthologies by Readomania Publishers (Twilight’s Children), The Best Asian Short Stories 2018 (Kitaab Publishers, Singapore), Bristol Short Story Prize 2022, Deodar Literary Prize, & The Hemlock Journal.
A Summer School Poetry Therapy Workshop for Caring Professionals
When your work centres around supporting others, it can be easy to lose sight of yourself.
You spend your days listening, containing, encouraging, reassuring and caring. This gentle online workshop offers a rare opportunity to reverse the flow, creating space to pause, reflect and reconnect with the person behind the professional role.
Together we’ll explore the experience of caring for the caregiver through carefully chosen poetry, reflective writing, gentle experiential exercises and supportive conversation. Drawing on ideas from relational Gestalt psychotherapy and poetry therapy, we’ll gently consider what you offer so freely to others and what you, too, may be needing.
This is not a workshop about becoming a “better therapist” or “better carer”. It is an invitation to replenish yourself, nurture your own wellbeing and return, however briefly, to yourself.
Whether you’re a therapist, counsellor, social worker, teacher, nurse, coach, support worker or anyone in a caring role, you’ll be warmly welcomed.
During the workshop we’ll explore:
• Restorative poetry and shared reflection
• Creative journalling and expressive writing exercises
• The Gestalt concept of proflection and caring for the self through awareness
• Gentle mindfulness and guided reflection
• Practical ways to take your own needs seriously without guilt
No previous experience of poetry or creative writing is needed. This is not about writing “good” poems. It is simply about noticing, reflecting and giving yourself permission to be cared for, too.
Workshop details
Date: Sunday 30 August
Time: 2.30pm to 5.00pm (including a short break)
Location: Online via Zoom
Cost: £35
Before we begin
To help create a nurturing space, you’re invited to bring:
• Coloured pens and paper or a journal
• A favourite drink
• A candle (optional)
• Something comforting, perhaps a blanket, pet, cuddly toy or fidget item
Come exactly as you are. Just a gentle afternoon of poetry, reflection and returning to yourself.
Celebrate National Poetry Day (1 Oct 2026), with this interactive CPD workshop for therapists, counsellors, social workers and educators.
Curious about how poetry can deepen therapeutic work?
This engaging two-hour online workshop offers an introduction to the growing field of poetry therapy and therapeutic writing. Whether you’re completely new to the approach or already use journalling or creative exercises with clients, you’ll discover practical, relational ways of incorporating poetry into your work.
Together we’ll explore how carefully chosen poems, reflective writing and guided discussion can foster awareness, insight, self-compassion and meaningful therapeutic dialogue. You’ll also gain an overview of the different approaches to writing for wellbeing, including expressive writing, journalling, bibliotherapy and poetry therapy, and consider when and how these methods may be appropriate within clinical practice.
During the workshop you’ll:
Discover what poetry therapy is and how it differs from expressive writing and bibliotherapy.
Learn the core principles behind therapeutic writing and poetry therapy.
Explore the benefits of using poems in therapeutic settings.
Understand how to select poems with therapeutic value.
Experience a range of reflective writing exercises for yourself.
Consider how poetry might be integrated ethically and sensitively into one-to-one or group work.
Leave with practical ideas, recommended resources and renewed inspiration for your own practice.
This workshop is experiential rather than literary. No previous experience of reading or writing poetry is required, and you won’t be expected to share anything you’ve written unless you choose to. The emphasis is on curiosity, reflection and discovering another creative doorway into therapeutic practice.
Who is it for?
Counsellors
Psychotherapists
Social workers
Mental health professionals
Coaches
Educators
Students and trainees interested in creative therapeutic approaches
Facilitated by Leah Larwood MA, UKCP, CPT
Leah is a Relational Gestalt Psychotherapist, Certified Poetry Therapist and published poet. She specialises in integrating poetry, creativity and relational psychotherapy to support emotional growth, self-awareness and healing.
A writing for wellbeing space for the neurodivergent community, and open to all.
Spend two hours engaging in gentle writing prompts and journalling activities. I’ll also share a poem, piece of writing or image/photography in each session for us to explore.
The format:
The first hour includes a short introduction, a warm-up writing prompt, and a shared poem. We’ll explore our emotional responses to it rather than literary analysis.
After a short 5-minute break, the final 55 minutes will offer a range of journalling prompts, with space to write, reflect, and (if you wish) share and explore what’s arisen.
I’m hoping this will become a monthly group. This first session is a chance to begin and see what unfolds.
Two free spaces are available for unwaged individuals. Please email for details.
Come as you are…
• Keep your camera off if that feels more comfortable
• No expectation to share anything you write
• You’re free to step away or leave early if needed (prompts can be sent after)
• Take breaks whenever your body or attention needs them
• Come as you are – fidgeting, moving, doodling, lying down all welcome
• Gentle, flexible pacing (nothing timed too tightly)
• You can engage in your own way – writing, thinking, or simply being there
Unnamed Patterns: Writing Towards Recognition
A conversation between Sue Spencer and Dr Buki Akilapa
Sometimes the most painful sentences we carry are not descriptions of events but verdicts on ourselves.
In this interactive LLRC session, we will explore how reflective writing, poetry, and compassionate rereading can help us identify inherited narratives, internalised judgements, and experiences of misrecognition that continue to shape our lives.
Drawing on themes from Buki’s recent LIRIC autoethnographic article, Journey of Reflection: Girlhood, Migration, Grief, and Healing Through Soul Work, this session will take the form of a conversation between Buki and Sue, interwoven with opportunities for reflection, writing, and optional sharing.
Together, we will explore:
- How unnamed patterns can masquerade as truth
- The role of writing in recognising and re-examining inherited beliefs
- Poetry as a way of seeing experience differently
- Self-compassion as a response to old stories and self-judgements
- The movement from misrecognition towards recognition
Participants will be invited to engage in short reflective writing exercises and gentle discussion within a supportive and welcoming space.
No previous writing experience is required. Participants are welcome to write, reflect, listen, or share as much or as little as feels right for them.
About Dr Buki Akilapa and Sue Spencer
Dr Buki Akilapa is Deputy Editor of the LIRIC Journal and a Lecturer in Healthcare Management at Global Banking School (GBS), UK. She holds a Doctor of Education (EdD) from Canterbury Christ Church University, is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
Buki’s research and writing interests include autoethnography, reflective writing, identity, belonging, migration, recognition, and Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes. Her recent LIRIC article, Journey of Reflection: Girlhood, Migration, Grief, and Healing Through Soul Work, explores how journalling, poetry, and compassionate rereading can support self-understanding and transformation.
Drawing on both personal and professional experience, Buki is passionate about creating reflective spaces where stories can be explored, voices can be heard, and writing can become a pathway to recognition, learning, and healing.
Sue Spencer is a freelance creative facilitator and practitioner. After four decades of working in health care and higher education she has turned her passion and expertise to supporting practitioners working in the socially engaged cultural sector. Sue has spoken at a number of academic conferences over the last 3 decades in a range of disciplines including nursing,moral injury and creative writing.
As a former nurse and recovering academic Sue has been exploring the therapeutic potential of poetry for the last two decades. She has offered poetry sessions as an antidote and remedy for stress, overwhelm and busyness in a variety of settings including university & public libraries, hospices and community groups. Sue has written about the potential to augment reflective practice and practice/professional development using creative writing and expressive visual art practices for a number of publications and looks forward to deepening these conversations.
Event Details:
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/launch/jc/86931980650
Meeting ID: 869 3198 0650
Passcode: 803304
Please note that this event will be recorded. The recording will be available for a limited time after the live event. Please allow a couple of working days for us to process and upload the recording after the live event.
For questions before or after the day of the event, please contact Flo on membership@lapidus.org.uk (responses on Tuesdays and Fridays). For queries on the day of the event, please contact mel@write4word.org.
About the Lapidus Living Research Community
The Lapidus Living Research Community (LLRC) meets on the first Saturday of every month via Zoom to discuss all things research, with a focus on qualitative arts-based research practices, theory and methods.
All Lapidus members are welcome, regardless of research experience. LLRC events are free and no tickets are required. Use the Zoom link above to access the event.
A writing for wellbeing space for the neurodivergent community, and open to all.
Spend two hours engaging in gentle writing prompts and journalling activities. I’ll also share a poem, piece of writing or image/photography in each session for us to explore.
The format:
The first hour includes a short introduction, a warm-up writing prompt, and a shared poem. We’ll explore our emotional responses to it rather than literary analysis.
After a short 5-minute break, the final 55 minutes will offer a range of journalling prompts, with space to write, reflect, and (if you wish) share and explore what’s arisen.
I’m hoping this will become a monthly group. This first session is a chance to begin and see what unfolds.
Two free spaces are available for unwaged individuals. Please email for details.
Come as you are…
• Keep your camera off if that feels more comfortable
• No expectation to share anything you write
• You’re free to step away or leave early if needed (prompts can be sent after)
• Take breaks whenever your body or attention needs them
• Come as you are – fidgeting, moving, doodling, lying down all welcome
• Gentle, flexible pacing (nothing timed too tightly)
• You can engage in your own way – writing, thinking, or simply being there
Join Lapidus International...
…from as little as £3.50 per month.
As a Lapidus Member, you are part of a supportive, international 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 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.