Writing 'disorders' discussed by author
Aparna Watal
Issue date: 2/4/05 Section: News
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The event took place in the Westphal Picture Gallery at 4 p.m. It started with her reading and was followed by a presentation on hypergraphia. She talked about the various aspects of writing, bipolar, hypergraphia, the compulsion to write, depression, writer's block and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A question and answer session followed the presentation and the evening finally culminated into a reception.
Alice Flaherty is a neurophysiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and faculty member at Harvard Medical School. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, Andrew Hrycyna, and her three-year old twin daughters and is working on at least three or four new books. She is an integral component of the growing population of physicians and scientists who are researching brain changes in writers. She has been working hard for the last several years to demystify the medical enigmas.
As the story of Alice Flaherty undergoing the experience of hypergraphia unfolds, she became a compulsive writer after the deaths of her premature twin boys. In her melancholy she felt compelled to write everything she was feeling-a charm that held her captive for the next few months. The birth of her twin girls, revoked her writing compulsion. Her own situation led Flaherty to investigate what is clinically referred to as hypergraphia and its well-known opposite, writer's block.
In a recent interview Alice Flaherty relates, "Hypergraphia stems from an internal drive, from a love of the work, not from external influences like money, fame, or spirituality. That's true of bad as well as good writing. I feel joy when I'm writing well. I have my bad days, and I'm terrified of writer's block. But in the end, the joy of finding even one good verb makes it all worthwhile."
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