Works in Process

The definite essence I received from this piece is that Johnson wants us to move back to the idea that language or writing can heal because “it enable[s] one to experience one’s self as transformative, as an open-ended, socially engaged process that is always available for revision.” (87). A self in process as Rogers names it. However, through time, and hugely because of Platonic works, this idea has been discarded, arguing that when writing about one’s self, you’re trying to unlock this idea of an “authentic soul” or a true self hidden beneath your subconscious.

I thought working his way through the historical periods and explaining how all these different theories came about was extremely significant for his argument. He very beautifully explains the other side of the coin while trying to show us the differences, still hoping we agree with his point that when writing about a traumatic event, we go through “the process of ‘self-actualization’ or ‘knowing’ or healing [as] a process of coming to a vision of one’s self as flexible, as a changeful process always involved with the larger processes of evolving social contexts.” (109). We see ourselves and our pasts not as fixed points but as places for revision, we see ourselves as changeable, and these are conclusions we come to through writing, which I thought was extremely powerful and very reminiscent of Warnock’s piece about our lives still being written and revised.

One of my favorite parts and what I find to be very provocative and interesting is when Johnson writes, “…imagination and revision play a large part, not because one alters events, but because in the act of imagining and revising one reasserts a degree of control over one’s experience of events.” (88). It is very similar to what we read in the introduction about placing one’s agency back in the traumatic experience that took over their life, and I really liked the way he worded it.