Beth Jacobs
Beth Jacobs, PhD, is a poet, clinical psychologist and life-time journaler. Writing and igniting creativity have been her life’s work. She is the author of Writing for Emotional Balance (New Harbinger Publishers, 2005), Paper Sky: What Happened After Anne Frank’s Diary Ended (CreateSpace, 2014), The Original Buddhist Psychology (North Atlantic Books, 2017), A Buddhist Journal: Practices for Meditators and Writers (North Atlantic Books, 2018), Long Shadows of Practice: poems (Homebound Publications, 2021) and Luminous and Gray: poems (Shanti Arts Publishers, 2025).
Beth has facilitated poetry workshops with school age children, new parents, community workers, and grandparents, and she has seen that writing and poetry are accessible and liberating for everyone in their own way. She is compiling her fourth collection of community poetry from this work and loves witnessing people become authors of their writing and their lives.
I am so impressed by the scope of this course! The essays and mini-workbooks offer a wealth of insight into causes of emotional imbalance, and the writing exercises provide focused opportunities to examine your behavior, thoughts, and feelings to see how emotional imbalance occurs in your own life. The learning doesn’t stop there, though. Beth Jacobs gives techniques for using your newly-mined understanding as a catalyst for changing and balancing your personal emotional landscape, and she includes ongoing reinforcement for the journey. Plus, I really appreciate her understanding that change takes time, and people are complex. There are no misleading claims of instantaneous results. This is a course for real people.
Linda Schneider, JD, MFA
College Writing Professor and Drum Circle Facilitator
As both a clinical psychologist and writer, I've seen the many psychological benefits of writing in myself and my patients. Beth's work helps people develop a wide range of emotional skills as she leads them on a productive path towards emotional growth. Her online course is a tremendous resource that provides what neither therapy nor self-help books can do on their own. I highly recommend Beth's course!
Nina Uziel-Miller, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist & Online Writer
The growth and therapeutic aspects of focused expressive writing and related techniques have been well supported in the professional literature. This online course focused on writing for emotional balance taught by Beth Jacobs, a clinical psychologist and one of the leaders in the field of poetry therapy, is especially exciting. Beth's publications (including her outstanding book "Writing for Emotional Balance") and professional presentations are engaging, practical, and inspirational! This is a course that will serve the participants long after it's completed.
Nicholas Mazza, Ph.D Dean and Patricia V. Vance Professor Emeritus
College of Social Work, Florida State University
Editor, Journal of Poetry Therapy, Author of Poetry Therapy: Theory and Practice
FL Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Psychologist, Marriage & Family Therapist
Beth Jacobs’ Writing for Emotional Balance course is powerful and useful. She has worked with these techniques at our Family Focus Agency with people from 8 year olds to grandparents and never fails to bring out the best and truest learning and expression. I myself have benefitting greatly from her writing structures and this course.
JoAnn Avery
Director, Dream Team Group of
Family Focus of Evanston
"Writing for Emotional Balance", an on-line course by Dr. Beth Jacobs is a must educational opportunity for individuals who have a story or experience to tell about an event that has impacted their lives. Often individuals have feelings and experience they find difficult to communicate to others. However, the experience of writing is a vehicle for giving voice through the written word that is an empowering experience. Writing is a private activity that a person can keep private or choose to share with someone else. The fact of being able to write allows the person the share this experience, positive or painful, with her/himself. That act in and of itself is liberating. Dr. Jacob's online course will guide the participant through the process of being able to put to paper what one has always wished to have been able to say. I highly recommend this course for novices as well a established writers who wish to explore the joy of giving reality, through words, to what they have felt and lived.
William J. Filstead, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology, Adler University
Author of Changed Forever
