엘리스 제임스와 ‘치유적 일’로서의 일기 쓰기

Alice James and Diary Writing as ‘Therapeutic Work’

This paper examines how Alice James’s diary writing served as a kind of ‘therapeutic work’ for her, by emphasizing how the genre of a diary is both private and public. For one thing, The Diary is a vivid record of most trenchant issues of her own illnesses. Struggling against a variety of ways in which she had been defined as an invalid diagnosed with many different names of illnesses, writing a diary served as a therapeutic tool to Alice for dealing with her bodily pain and emotional issues. In this vein, Alice’s diary functioned in the way journal therapy is helpful for healing and growth. Furthermore, her personal issues of being an invalid resonate with how women were defined as being ‘invalid’ in her day. In addition, she tried to deal with various topical issues, by incorporating abundant sources of public documents into her diary. Consequently, Alice’s diary served as a kind of therapeutic work to address both her private issues and public affairs of her day.