Therapy Stand-Up and the Gesture of Writing

<p><em>Therapy Stand-Up and the Gesture of Writing</em> is a sharp lively exploration of the connections between therapy stand-up comedy and writing as a method of inquiry; and of how these connections can be theorized through the author’s new concept: <i>creative-relational inquiry</i>. Engaging often poignant stories combine with rich scholarship to offer the reader provocative original insights. </p><p>Wyatt writes about his work as a therapist with his client Karl as they meet and talk together. He tells stories of his experiences attending comedy shows in Edinburgh and of his own occasional performances. He brings alive the everyday profound through vignettes and poems of work travel visiting his mother mourning his late father and more. The book’s drive however is in bringing together therapy stand-up and writing as a method of inquiry to mobilise theory drawing in particular from Deleuze and Guattari the new materialisms and affect theory. Through this diffractive work the text formulates and develops <i>creative-relational inquiry. </i></p><p>With its combination of fluent story-telling and smart theoretical propositions <i>Therapy Stand-up and the Gesture of Writing</i> offers compelling possibilities both for qualitative scholars who have an interest in narrative performative and embodied scholarship and those who desire to bring current complex theories to bear upon their research practices. </p>