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Good Practice for Autobiographical Work

Some things to consider when making autobiographical work about mental health.

As part of our Performing Anxiety project we are developing a good practice guide for making creative work about mental health, drawing on conversations with over 30 writers, performers, directors, producers and programmers who have professional experience in this field.

We are updating these guidelines in response to feedback, so that this resource can evolve as we continue to learn. If there are things you think we’ve missed – or that we’ve got wrong – contact Andrew Eaton-Lewis at smhaf@mentalhealth.org.uk

Are you ready?

Is the experience you want to share something you’re still processing? Do you have enough distance from it to do it safely?

I find it really useful to use some of the more painful things that have happened and write about them. But I would only write about these things years on, when I have found my footing. I worry when people are working through things and writing about them and they’re very raw.
Laura Horton
playwright

Remember art is not a substitute for therapy.

If you are looking to audiences (or critics) for validation, a negative response is likely to be triggering for you.

It’s not a rite of passage, making a show. It’s not ‘I deserve to be heard.’ There can be 5% of it that’s healing and there has to be 95% of it that does something to an audience, that’s going to do something for the world.
Bryony Kimmings
writer-performer

The why is important.

Why do you want to share these experiences in public? Who is the audience for it? Why do they need to see it? How might it help them?

The first question is why. Have real clarity about that, and also think about the political ramifications of what you are putting out into the world.
selina thompson
writer-performer

Make time for R&D.

Make time for research and development (R&D) phase before sharing anything in public. Several artists we spoke to emphasised the importance of trying out raw ideas you might not end up using, without the pressure of creating a finished product that could be exposing for you in ways you hadn’t anticipated..

In a mental health context, R&D is really important. It’s almost like the material will tell you whether you’re ready or not. If you try and make something and it’s painful to even look at, then you know you’re not ready.
Bryony Kimmings
writer-performer

Avoid overexposure.

Always be mindful of overexposing yourself and others. Can you fictionalise your story? And if you don’t want to, what narrative devices can you use to put a safe distance between the material and your real life? What details can be changed?

Consider others who are part of your story.

Think about how sharing your story might affect other people in your life. Do you have their explicit consent to tell it? If not, what measures are you putting in place to ensure what you are doing is ethical? Can characters be identified as real people? What are the potential consequences if they are identified, particularly if the show reaches a wide audience and is discussed on social media?.

I always ask my students, is it your story to tell? Number one is permission, and right to reply if they’re not in it…. so that no one in the audience goes, I feel really uncomfortable because I’m not sure that this is ethical or balanced or it feels too exposing.
Bryony Kimmings
writer-performer

Think through every stage.

Consider how your mental health might be affected during every stage of the production process.

Can you work long days? If you can’t, how does that change the length of the process? Are you going to need a gym membership? Also, the care can’t just be in the process, it has to be in the show. What are the bits that are going to feel intense and triggering for you? What does the space need to be like before the show? What does the space need to be like after the show? Are you going to be able to tour it? If so, for how long?
selina thompson
writer-performer

Include therapy in your project budget as an access cost.

If you are exploring potentially triggering material, therapy is a legitimate access cost and funders are increasingly recognising this.

That just seems like such an obvious thing, you know, like that should be factored into all budgets. To have it legitimised and formalised by a producer… I absolutely would do that again and I would recommend that artists do that.
Amy conway
writer-performer

Build a support network

The very first thing you need to be able to make work about your mental health, as somebody that experiences mental health difficulties, is a community of other people in the same boat, because you need to be sharing.
Selina thompson
writer-performer

Set boundaries

Set clear boundaries for yourself when talking about the work. Just because you have chosen to share something very personal, you are not obliged to share anything beyond what you have chosen to include in a show, or to discuss the material in any forum (rehearsals, post-show Q&A etc) where you are not comfortable doing it.

Suddenly you’re in this weird place where, because you’ve told your story, it’s like, ‘oh, she’s fine to talk about any of it.’ And I hadn’t recognised that. Moments like that really threw me because they weren’t contained or translated into the work, it was suddenly just public chat.
caroline horton
THEATRE-MAKER

What does it look like to cancel a show?

Do you have a contingency plan in place, for example someone who can perform instead of you?

Make sure you know what it looks like to cancel a show if it’s not safe for you to perform it. Because if you know what the steps are, it stops being this terrifying thing you can’t do, and becomes just another process.
Selina thompson
writer-performer