The Map of Your Mind: Journeys into Creative Expression

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

Writer and psychotherapist Maureen Jennings knows just how essential
creative expression is for all of us. Her “map” or guide is full of
sensible advice and encouragement for readers. She suggests that we all
begin by accepting our uniqueness. This should be followed by a program
of exercises to be done alone or with friends.

Jennings has been a psychotherapist in private practice for 25 years.
For much of that time she has been conducting creative expression
groups. Jennings is also a celebrated writer of crime novels, plays, and
short stories, and has won awards from both Heritage Toronto and the
Crime Writers of Canada.

The Map of Your Mind is divided into seven sections: Introduction,
Warming Up, Coming to Your Senses, Swimming in the Creative Stream,
Turning Straw into Gold, What to Do with It All, and The Map of Your
Mind. There is a short bibliography and a descriptive list of
contributors. The style is personal; indeed, the introduction
constitutes a short autobiography. The main section, Coming to Your
Senses, offers detailed suggestions for “exercises” that are both
practical and psychological, such as taking a look at the neglected
recesses at the back of your bureau drawers (make notes on what you find
there, Jennings suggests, and on the emotions they generate).

The Map of Your Mind is an unusual book, both practical and reflective,
useful and inspirational: a book to which one might return more than
once.