Betsan Corkhill is internationally recognised as an expert in therapeutic knitting. Hear about how a stack of letters in a filing cabinet let to Betsan's career specialising in the therapeutic benefits of knitting and how she rebranded knitting as a 'rythmical bilateral psychosocial intervention' in order to get knitting taken seriously when discussing her research.

View the transcript for this episode on the captivate player

You can find out more about Betsan's work and reasearch at the Stitchlinks website

Find out more about Dr Mia Hobbs, the Why I Knit Podcast and read the blog here

Follow Dr Mia Hobbs on Instagram: @knittingistherapeutic

Find out more about the topics we discuss in this episode:

Knitting equation KNITTINGEQUATION_June2015.pdf (stitchlinks.com)

EMDR- EMDR:The basics - EMDR Association UK - Overcoming trauma with expert help

Betsan Corkhill's book Knit for Health & Wellness(knitforhealthandwellness.com)

Hello, and welcome to the Why I Knit podcast. My name

is Dr. Mia Hobbs and I'm a clinical psychologist who's

passionate about knitting and its benefits for our mental

health. Each week on the podcast, I interview a different

knitter about why they knit and how it benefits their mental

well being. This week on the podcast, I'm talking to Betsan

Corkhill. Betson is a former physiotherapist and lifestyle

coach. She's an expert in therapeutic knitting, and also

the author of Knit for Health and Wellness. You can find links

to the Stitch links Website and any of the yarns and patterns we

discuss in the show notes.

Hi Betsan welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure. I'm really pleased to be able to

talk to the kind of one of the founders of therapeutic

knitting. I would love to start with asking where your story

with knitting began.

Well, my mother told me to knit when I was

seven. I can remember being intensely frustrated at the time

because I immediately wanted a jumper. So I didn't then knit

for quite some time. And it actually until I was expecting

my first child, and then I knitted quite a few things, and

I knitted the christening shawl. And then I had another big gap.

And I went back to it when I started this project, the

research into the meditative creative and social benefits of

knitting because I because I'm really firm believer in

practising what I preach, and now I do it more or less every

day.

Yeah. And did the project come about first rather

than you weren't knitting at the time? You started because of the

project?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a it's quite a long,

it's, it's, I think it's quite an interesting story, how I got

into it, actually, because I was a I was working as a

physiotherapist, a community physiotherapist, and I was asked

by GPs to go into people's homes for people who weren't able to

get to the physiotherapy department for some reason. So

it could be a whole range of reasons across a whole range of

age groups. And I soon realised that, you know, call her Mrs.

Smith, Mrs. Smith wasn't getting out of her chair, because she

had no reason to get out of her chair, she had absolutely

nothing in the day, no purpose, nothing she was successful at.

And I wasn't at that you know, the system didn't allow me to,

to, to give the time and the treatment that that person

needed. And I was allowed to go in three times maybe to change

somebody's whole lifestyle. So I got really frustrated and I, I

left and I became a freelance production editor for a range

magazines, and ended up ended up on a range of craft and across

the whole, the whole craft portfolio. And I did a three,

six month stint on the craft portfolio, one of my jobs was to

sort the letters pages. And that entailed reading all the letters

that came into the office every day, and they literally got

sacks full of letters every day. And I realised that most of them

are talking about the therapeutic benefit of their

craft, but particularly knitting. And I mentioned it to

the editor of one of the knitting magazines? And she

said, Oh, yes, I we know that something really important here.

We really don't know what it what it is. We've got a filing

cabinet full of letters there. Would you like to go read them?

And they were literally 1000s of letters because they just run a

competition about what is it you find, you know, beneficial about

knitting. And it was the first time that somebody with a

medical background had read these letters. And it was really

striking. They were really profound life stories. You know,

I remember I remember very vividly the first letter I

picked up was from a 14 year old girl who had written I don't

have to take my pain medication when I knit, I am often in

hospital and I don't so I don't have to take that medication

when I knit. It helps me and the second was from a lady who tried

to commit suicide and her husband had taken her in a

simple knitting project into hospital out of desperation,

really to try and get her interested in something. And she

said now, now I look forward to my next project. And I look

forward to tomorrow. And it changed her life. So there were

those kinds of profound stories and I thought wow there's

something really important here

that gave me goosebumps to hear that. Yeah.

And to think they were sitting in a filing cabinet until you

came along.

yes. And so my first thought was, I wonder if

this wonder if this could help Mrs. Smith who sits in her

armchair said to, you know, in our armchair to enable her to be

successful at something too. So using it as a springboard to, to

get interested in the world in the world, you know, open up the

world and get interested in doing other things. And then it

then as more I started to research it, because I wanted to

know, I think the striking things is there were large

numbers of people saying very, very similar things, as I'm sure

you've discovered. And I wanted to know, why that was happening,

what was happening, and if there was any science behind it,

because you know, there had to be something happening within

them biologically and chemically, for them to feel

better. And so I wanted to know, what, what what was happening.

So that's how it started. And the more I researched more, I

realised how you know how important it was. So then I

started thinking about developing the idea of

therapeutic knitting which, and for me, I would, I would

describe therapeutic knitting as a combination of knitting and

knowledge. So enhancing that, you know, knitting has its

benefits, but you can learn how to enhance those benefits. And

you can have knowledge about how to do that. But also, you know,

people who are fit and well can do that. But also, if you've got

a medical condition, you can learn about that condition and

learn how to use knitting to manage the symptoms, further

enhance those benefits. So that's where that's where it all

started. So I approached the pain clinic here in Bath, and

asked if they'd be interested in setting up a group. I didn't

hear back from them for about six months. So I thought, well,

you know, that's it. And then six months later, I said, well,

Yeah. Still in there somewhere.

they said, Yeah, we'd be quite interested. And that was back in

2006. So I started up, I started a therapeutic knitting group in

a pain clinic. And that really got me interested in the subject

of pain. So since then, I've specialised in helping working

with people with long term pain. And I thought well, ooh help i'm

, you know how I'm gonna have to run the knitting group. In two

weeks time, I better get back to knitting. Learning how to knit

again. Of course, once you've learned to you never forget it.

Yes. So then I got back to doing it myself. I do. I do really

believe in practising what I preach. I don't think you can

advise people to do things if you're not doing it yourself.

Really?

Yeah. So is that do you keep doing it in your

personal life for yourself?

Yes, yes. Yeah.

And do you feel like you've noticed those therapeutic

benefits even on any level for you for your life? Are there

times when you feel like you turn to the knitting more?

Oh, yes, absolutely. It's, it's, you

know, I use it as a as a way of managing stress on more or less

daily basis and bringing that especially recently, I think

people have needed to keep those those you know, sort of stress

systems. rebalance them because it's been stressful. In the last

20 months for everybody,

yeah, during COVID

Yeah, so I think it's become more important

for people to incorporate those things into into their daily

lives.

Yeah, I have to say I also felt really lucky to have a

hobby, something I love doing that I could still do in COVID

that it wasn't something you know, my main hobby was

something that wasn't allowed because of restrictions. Yeah.

Yeah. Are there particular things you enjoy knitting at the

moment?

Well, I have a I have different projects going

and I've always advised people to have a range of different

projects on the go according to the mood they're in on the day

but but also maybe according to mood they would like to move

themselves into because you go into a different mind state with

with whatever project you're on. So I have I will have an easy

one and or a more or a more challenging one on the go and my

focus has changed actually you know from from when I was a

child at seven to becoming really frustrated not being able

to get an end product now it's more it's changed in that I can

I can knit something that will take a year to finish and and be

quite happy with that and just do it for the process. Yeah, not

for not for that end product. The end product when it comes is

extra specially nice. I spent the whole of the first lockdown

knitting a I knitted we had our first grandchild arrived in the

first lock bit very beginning of the First lockdown

congratulations

we weren't allowed to see him. Oh, because

they live quite a quite they live three hour drive away. So I

decided right I'll knit a cot blanket as a as a hug from us

because we couldn't give him a physical hug. And our daughter

who's living with us at the time said, Oh, I love that, would you

make me one only I want to double bed size. So I spent the

whole of the first lockdown knitting this double bed. Very

easy sort of garter stitch, but with a slightly zigzag, you

know, sort of pattern in it. And it was wonderful. That's what

kept me sane, I think in those first really anxious months,

when everything was still very unknown. And, yeah, so that was

her Christmas, one of her Christmas presents last year.

I guess she's got that to look back on. And you

can always associate that blanket, I guess with, you know,

getting through that really difficult period of time. Yeah.

Does it matter to you what the stitch pattern is? Or like more

in the process? Does that make a difference or not particularly

Not really, it needs to be one that I can, if I

want something easy and rhythmic like that, it needs to be

something that I can, my brain can remember without really

referring to a pattern all the time. So yeah, but I but I, I

have, you know, sort of a done a lace shawl. Well not done. I'm

doing a lace shawl and another and another large sort of

shawls, scarf stroke shawl pattern. It's got a few

different complicated lines in it. You know, in between, I'm

rhythmically away, and then suddenly I come on this line

write I have to pay attention now. So that's a nice one.

Because it takes it takes me about an hour to do a row

Oh, wow. It's big.

It's sock yarn, Well, it's in sock yarn. Yes,

it's, it depends. I pick up on sometimes I'll just do a dish

cloth. Yeah. So you'll do it or a face cloth?

So pretty much every day, you'll do some knitting.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm exactly the same. And I definitely also

relate to the idea of having projects for different, I don't

know, moments in my life. So I need something I find if I'm

doing a zoom training or something, I need to knit

something rhythmical. And easy, because it helps me focus on

sitting still and listening. Yeah, I'm learning something.

Whereas I also like to have something more complicated. They

have to really focus on so that it's not possible to think about

stressful things for the rest of my life at the same time as

doing the knitting.

Yes, yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, obviously,

the level is different for everybody. But if you have an

easy project going on, you can listen to and take in

information and retain information. I think lots of

knitters say they retain the information better more

effectively than anything. I wouldn't be able to do that with

a complex pattern. No, it would have to be an easy one. Yeah. So

my my brain, my brain is doing something automatically in the

background, but my attention is on the on the talk.

Yeah, the same. And I find it's easy to do, you know,

stocking stitch or garter stitch for, you know, you can get

through the boring inches on on a sweater or something. While

you're listening. Definitely find it helps me focus. And I

would love to hear more about Stitchlinks and the kind of

community you've created. And I know your invitation on the

stitchlinks Website for people to send you stories about their

relationship with knitting. I'm assuming that was inspired by

this filing cabinet that you this treasure trove. You came

across all those letters?

Yes, yeah. And you know that I continue to get

stories and the stories are mind blowing. And they're in, you

know, in what I mean, I had one yesterday from somebody who

said, my mother, last year, my mother and father were both in

intensive care with COVID. Fortunately, they both survived.

But her mother returned home from hospital having to sleep on

the sofa because she wasn't able to walk upstairs. She's too

breathless to walk upstairs. Obviously, quite low, unable to

use her left hand. And her daughter took her some yarn and

some needles and asked her to knit a blanket for her. And the

mother has now just found her purpose in life, and she's

regained the use of a left hand. Wow. So yeah, she's she and she

puts it all down to knitting.

So I guess my area of work is mainly in the mental

health and psychological benefits of knitting, but it

sounds like you're really noticing also physical changes,

like the experience of pain. And yes, I guess rehabilitation

physically.

Yeah, yes. And it's, I mean, as you know, it's

all intricately intertwined, isn't it? Yes. You know, if you

if you feel better mentally, you're more likely to go out and

do something physically, aren't you and it's if you feel better

physically, you feel better mentally. It's all in. It's all

intertwined. So, yeah, you see the benefits across the, across

the board. And I think doing something like creative like

knitting in, in lockdown or in a situation of greater uncertainty

and, you know, our fear systems were, were were used werent't

they to, to, to give information out about COVID. And because you

couldn't get that information across by appealing to people's

common sense, the only way they could get people to adhere to

lockdowns was to terrify the life out of everybody, and work.

And you know, and all those advertising, slogans were were

based on our fear systems and making us afraid to go out and

touch things and be close to people. And you can't just

switch those on and you know, haven't switched on for two

years, or 18 months, two years and expect them then to switch

off again, you know, people are still still last year there. And

I think having something creative, like knitting in that

time, has been almost the opposite to that, to that level

of fear. It's, it creates a sense of safety. It's colourful,

it's constructive. It's sort of the All in all the things that

are opposite to, to what we to what our minds werete nding to

dwell on all the time.

Yeah. It would be really helpful if you've got a

kind of summary of the all of the work you've done and the

things that you've noticed being therapeutic about knitting, have

you got a kind of a is there a way of synthesising? I think

you've got it right? You've got a knitting equation on the

Stitchlinks Website. Yeah, it'd be helpful to hear a little bit

about that.

So the knitting equation, I divided it up into

three columns. So the first column are the movements, and I

think the movements are really important. And the second column

is having an enriched environment. And then the third

column is the benefits of the social engagement and in a

group. So you can choose the the benefits of knitting are diff

alone are different from knitting in a group. But the

movements, the movements and is portability. I think what sets

knitting apart from other creative activities, yeah. So

the movements are two-handed, bilateral, they cross the

midline of the body, they're rhythmic, and they're repetitive

and they become automatic, and all those have a certain number

of benefits. But I think the one that's of most benefit is rhythm

of movements. Most of the stories will talk about the

rhythm of movements and calming the mind down and there is some

research now that your brain likes rhythmic movement or

rhythmic activities, because it makes the brain feel safe. You

know, you'll you'll know that the the brain is always

predicting what's around the corner, so it doesn't like

surprises. It doesn't like uncertainty last that's why a

lot of people have struggled over the last 20 months your

brain hates uncertainty and although uncertainty has always

been there since the moment you were conceived. You know, you we

used to live life with it in the background really was but over

the last 20 months has been thrust to the forefront of our

minds every single day. And rhythm is predictable. So it

makes the brain feel safe. So anything that's rhythmic will,

will help you know I've had people send stories about they

find drumming, for example, has a very similar effect. Some

people say baking bread, kneading bread has the same

effect playing a musical instrument. When you think about

those things, like they're great. And I would encourage

people to do a variety of things. But you can't take it

with it with you on a bus, you can't do it on public transport.

And that's the huge benefit of knitting is that you have a tool

really effective tool for calming you down almost

instantaneously that you can carry with you and we we've had

quite a lot of success curing panic attacks for example. Lots

of people can't go on public transport without it

particularly now. And they you know, you can use it in the

middle of the night. It doesn't disturb anybody else. So that's

really what raises it up. We've we've really struggled apart

from crochet. And then the only way the crochet differs is that

some styles of crochet are very one-handed. And we tend to I

would encourage people to learn more two-handed techniques Have

crochet because I think two-handed Nature is, is

important.

Yeah, I wondered if you could talk a little bit more

about that, because you and I had a conversation before we

started recording about a study that's in progress. It's using

crochet and that it is different to knitting. And it's something

somebody else has mentioned in one of my interviews about

crocheting, but not quite finding the same therapeutic

kind of feeling from crochet. And I'm interested in and I

think that two-handed and the bilateral movements is something

I think a lot of people won't know about. So I wondered if you

could say a little bit more about the theories about why

that's helpful.

Yeah, I think, I mean, there's no research to

back this up specifically on knitting. But there is in other

areas, if you're, if you're using, you know, everybody, most

people know if using your left hand is controlled by the right

side of your brain, and vice versa. When you bring your hands

together to form a complex pattern of movements, your brain

has to work really quite hard to coordinate those hands, it

occupies a lot of capacity in that moment. If you're crossing

the midline, then you're going over into that sort of brain

space with your hands. And that's, that actually

complicates things even even further. So that you know, there

are quite a few people that say that, yes, maybe they find

sewing, set rhythmic. But a two-handed movement seems to

induce a meditative state more readily. Because you're taking

up more capacity more of the brain is involved in that core

inner coordination. So you know, there's some with with crochet,

if you;re holding the crochet hook with one hand and just

holding the yarn with the other hand and just picking up the

yarn, you're very much more or less you just using one hand.

There are techniques where you can feed the yarn with your with

the yarn holding hands so that you are getting this more

coordinated pattern of movements. That's just a theory

of mine. But I think it's you know, if you get if you're

getting down to the real details, you have to look at

things like that.

I was thinking about EMDR. Yeah, so eye movement,

desensitisation reprocessing, which is something used in

trauma therapy by psychologists, it's not something I'm

specifically trained in, but lots of my colleagues are, and

that uses eye movements and sometimes tapping and crosses

the midline of the body. And the idea is that those repetitive

movements help with re processing a traumatic memory.

So I think its a really interesting link

I think there is there is discussion going on

with whether the mechanisms behind what's going on with

knitting, very similar to EMDR. And I've certainly worked with

people suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and

their incidence of flashbacks and the severity of the

flashbacks that has improved significantly with knitting. In

fact, knitting was a the treatment of choice for soldiers

after World War One for shellshock. Which, which we now

know as post traumatic stress they used knitting. So yeah, the

there is that rhythmic, repetitive movement that

crosses the midline and to teachers of young children will

say they do something called Brain gym, which is a series of

movements that cross the midline of the body to get the brain,

awake in the mornings. And again, there's a there's a, you

know, focus on crossing that midline. The other thing I would

say about crochet is that if you holding a hook and you have a

sort of like a pincer grip on the hook, and you're, you're

turning your hand all the time that people that are susceptible

to hand and wrist pain, get more real hand and wrist pain, so

need to pace need to pace crochet more than they pace.

Knitting. Yeah, so that's the other. That's the other issue if

you if you have a tendency towards hand and wrist pain to

be a little bit more careful there. But I would encourage

people to do both this. You know, the great as you know that

variety is good for the brain, so you don't want well,

therapeutic knitting is not about encouraging people to sit

and knit all day. It's about using it as a tool to improve

your well being. It's about not sitting for more than about 20

minutes. It's about getting up and moving around. That's all

part of that therapeutic side, getting a circulation going and

using it as part of a whole sort of wellbeing toolbox. Really?

Yeah.

Have you had much? I don't know. I'm wondering about

what the reception was from academics when you're applying

for research funding or for people who were suggested to

come to a knitting group for pain management, like how have

you found that has been received by people who might not be

knitters.

In the beginning. Scientists

researchers laughed and laughed. And I don't know if you know,

but I had to call knitting something different in the

beginning.

I think I read that in your book that you had to

rebrand it.

Yeah. Had to call it a bilateral rhythmic

psychosocial intervention.

And that worked?

it did it did it? Yeah, it's really weird.

There is a oh ay would those who are saying there's almost a fear

of using the word knitting in some sort of ways or a fear of

being seen as a knitter? It's, it's bizarre. This is it's all

it's a fear of the because people see it as something

that's been that's done by women. It's soft. It's, you

know, it's the opposite to yours to science really soft. It's

fluffy, done by people think it's done by older women or your

granny in and there's a lot of that thinking that's going on,

underneath what people think of knitting. Yeah. And soon as I

started to argue, from the scientific perspective, you

know, I'd be in a conference and people will say, say to me a,

what do you do, then I say, Well, if I do I use the K word

or not. And if I use the K word, people would in a and say, you

know, we're using knitting to treat chronic pain. They would

laugh, and you could see their gaze going elsewhere and say,

How am I going to get away from this man woman? I was treated a

bit like a knitting evangelist who wanted to spread the word

knitting, whereas ironically, at that time, I wasn't, I wouldn't

have called myself a knitter. Okay. I had not got back into

it, then. Yeah. But if I said, we're using a bilateral rhythmic

psychosocial intervention, they would say, well, that's

interesting. And what are you doing? How are you doing that

then? And that would open that would open the door where we're

using knitting, as you know, so it wasn't? Yeah, it wasn't seen

as knitting then.

That's so interesting. It took you a while

to overcome that stigma?

Yes. Yeah. And we I know, we've had funding

proposals turned down without them being read, because the

word knitting has been in the title.

So has it changed at all? Since you still, you said

started in 2005?

Yeah, it has changed. I'm asked to speak

quite regularly now to groups of doctors. Before COVID, we had a

number of GP clinics and hospitals who were thinking of

starting up therapeutic knitting groups obviously, can't couldn't

do that in person now. But it's, it's people don't laugh anymore.

And also, I have a lot more confidence in it as well, which

makes difference. Because it was a bit it was, it was quite

challenging to me personally, you know, if you have somebody

just laugh at you Sure. When you think when you're thinking,

right, okay.

Yeah, I think it took me a while to feel confident

enough to do that. I think, you know, I left my NHS job in 2017,

and went into private practice. And as I was leaving my NHS

team, I was known as the knitter there. And I'd organised a few,

you know, collaborative projects where we knitted squares, and I

put them together to make blankets for people's babies.

And I said, you know, I'd really like to run therapeutic knitting

groups. And it was slightly kind of taken as a bit of a joke. And

I think it's taken me until this year, really to think there

actually, there is enough evidence behind the idea of

running therapeutic knitting groups and starting to use it

more in my work without feeling worried about how people will

respond. And I think I've also taken some of the principles of

therapeutic knitting and applied to a bit flexibly to people who

were say, would say no to knitting, but they're using some

similar skills to create circut boards or doing something

slightly different, but getting some of the same benefits in

whatever way feels accessible for them. Yeah,

absolutely. I mean, I was known by one GP

practice as that mad knitting woman. And, and even now I can

go to a conference and introduced to somebody and

they'll say, Oh, so you're that knitting woman you are not as,

as anything else apart from that knitting woman, but now it's not

done so in such a derogatory way.

Maybe people are starting to see a bit more of

the benefits. I certainly feel it, for example, conferences

just before COVID, there was more of an idea about, it's okay

to doodle, or it's okay to do something if it helps you to

focus on sitting still for six hours and listening to a

training course, which actually, we as humans are not really

designed to do.

Yeah. And I think there's a lot, I think,

actually COVID has helped bizarrely in some way, in that

people are a lot more accepting of what we would call mind body

therapies as well. And there's now a lot of recognition in you

know, needing a bottom up as well as a top down approach. And

the benefits of that, and, you know, knitting is, is it, you

know, changes the input into the brain but it, also induces that

level of calm. So you get that top down, calm and the bottom

up, rhythm coming in. And, and there's more recognition

scientifically now of, of of that.

And I wonder whether actually COVID has forced us all

to think about what do I need in order to be happy and healthy?

Like, what do I get from my mind and my body? Yeah, to be able to

function? Well, as a human? Yes. A lot of things were thrown up

in the air.

Yeah. It's also alerted people to your Well,

yes, I am connected to the natural world as well. And it's

all you know, it's all tied in. It's not. You can't solve

everything with with a pill. It's all interrelated. It's all

intertwined.

And one of the questions I always ask in the

podcast is whether someone can talk about a significant

knitting project for them. So that could be one of your

projects, it could be one that's come up in as part of your work.

Actually. The the blanket that's behind me

there.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I was noticing that.

It's when I did. It's my comfort blanket for

when my mother died.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

That was it. It was while it was eight years ago

now. But it's pretty, it was pretty traumatic at the time.

And as it happened, my one of my best friends husband, died in

the same week in traumatic in a traumatic way. And we both

belong to the same knitting group. So we both started, we

sat with each other. And I think in those times, you, you don't

want to talk you you know, people, when people come around,

they feel the need to talk when you don't want to talk. So we

just sat with each other in silence and knitted those

blankets,

did you knit the same blanket?

She knitted a slightly different pattern. But

yeah, she was just going in straight lines. And that's all

we needed. And mine was more or less straight lines. But members

from the knitting group would knock on the door, bring some

cake and sit, just sit down and knit with us and not say

anything. And we would, you know, and and they would come

and go and supported us. So I think that was it actually

turned into quite a special time. And you know, we both have

that we both have those blankets now. Yeah.

Yeah. Does it feel? Does it feel comforting? Now?

Yes. to have the blanket to remember time?

Yeah. But it also feels comforting to know

that that helped me deal with processing the trauma of it all.

And it really did. Yeah. And I think without it, perhaps I

would have had some post traumatic flashbacks, because I

was sort of before, you know, sort of, immediately after the

event, I was having those. And they certainly helped to calm

those down. So yes, I would say that's,

so that's a really special blanket.

Yes, yeah.

And I do think that's a really powerful thing about

knitting that you can get through something really hard

and have something that is a very physical tangible reminder.

But also in a comforting way, often of overcoming or living

through surviving something that was difficult.

Yeah, I think a blanket is a nice is a nice

project to do in that kind of thing because it because it

keeps you warm as you're doing it sort of wraps around you as

you as you're making it. So I think it's a really nice

project, mindless project to do while you and I think, you know,

one of the things that came out in our in my observations of

doing this work is that people don't get an opportunity to just

be with other people without feeling the need to participate

or talk very much anymore. i It was my mother who, who actually

brought up when I was visiting in when I was staying with her.

Towards the end of her life. She said, it's so nice to have you

here in the evening because I don't feel I have to talk, I can

just be with somebody else. So whereas I got visitors, she had

used to have visitors all the time, who pop in for, they pop

in for a chat and feel they had to make conversation. And she

said, I don't want to make conversation all the time, I

just want to sit and be. So what actually, that's what knitting

allows, even in a knitting group, you go into a group and

sit in the group, but you can sit and just be

Yeah. And I found that really helpful for people

who don't find social situations so easy that there's a shared

focus, there's a there's a topic of conversation if you want one.

But also there isn't any requirement to talk that you

could just be there with other people knitting, and not say

anything at all. And that wouldn't be considered unusual

or rude, or

I think I think, I think that's one of the

most important aspects of a group of particularly

therapeutic group. Because it people come along, even if

they're not, even if they're feeling particularly vulnerable

on that day, because they know they don't have to participate.

All the people who used to come to my pain knitting group,

wouldn't have gone to a group if it wasn't for knitting, because

every other group would require you to introduce yourself to say

what you do, you know, and and require you to to take part. But

it's, you know, what I one of the things we identified was

that knitting is one of the few activities that you can have eye

contact or not. Yeah, and the or not, it was really important,

because if you're not feeling like participating, you put it

perfectly acceptable to just sit and knit quietly. And just as

therapeutic to just sit and knit quietly as it is to join in with

the chat. Yeah. And that's what makes it so, so valuable as a

therapeutic tool for a group.

Yeah, yeah, I've definitely spoken to people

don't always, you know, they've told me they don't find eye

contact easy, or sometimes it feels challenging. And knitting

is one of the things that has helped them to be in group

spaces, because it just isn't required in the same way it's

perfect. You know, lots of people are just looking down at

their knitting, or they look up, you know, fleetingly and that's

fine.

Yes. And there's always a topic of

conversation. Now you can say, Well, I would really like that

colour, or, you know, I've done this what pattern you're doing.

So you don't have to hunt for a topic of conversation, either. I

think I don't know whether you found but what I found when

running knitting groups is that conversation tends to get much

deeper and more intimate more quickly. And people find it easy

to talk when they knit. And I think that's something to do

with the automatic nature of movements. And I wasn't, at

first I wasn't, I didn't really focus on the automatic nature.

But now I think that this is really quite important, because

I think if you give the brain a background automatic task to do,

then it's somehow and some of the stories say this, actually,

that somehow frees up the rest of the mind, the brain to do

other things. It occupies the brain or at a low level,

enabling them to talk to talk. And, you know, very, very, I've

lost count to the number of times the people have said to me

while we're sitting and knitting together. I haven't told anybody

this before. Yeah. And it's usually a pretty horrendous

story of some of some sort of trauma that they've kept in that

they haven't felt able to talk about.

I wonder whether the eye contact helps with that as

well. Because certainly some of the things that I work a lot

with teenagers and their families, and I find that

parents of teenagers often say, Well, they don't really open up

to me, unless we happen to be in the car driving somewhere. And I

guess driving is another automatic kind of process, but

also, from the teenagers perspective, who's probably not

doing the driving, they're sitting not having to make eye

contact or have an intense we're sitting down to have a chat type

conversation. And maybe that's feels a bit safer to then start

to talk about something that might be quite difficult.

Yes, I think I mean, I think it's that feeling

of safety, that's the important you get a sort of it does. When

you're knitting you do get a sense of safety of being safe,

being safe in that moment. And again, I think that's down to

the down to the movements that those rhythmic movements and

yeah, you feel safer to divulge that information.

That's so interesting. I always end the

podcast with with asking what's the greatest gift that you

You've been given by knitting that's helped helped you in the

rest of your life. I don't know what you what your ideas are

about that Betsan.

I think for me, it's set me on a completely

different path in life.

In terms of your career. Yeah, yeah.

And it's got me thinking outside the box because

you know, I was a physio and as a physio we were trained in a

very biomechanical way. And but I'm completely sort of away from

that now. And it's It's opened my ideas up to a whole range of

issues. I'm I do a lot of work now in the world of, of long

term pain with people long term pain. I've become a Tai Chi

teacher as a result of knitting, which sounds strange, but there

are many similarities. It's sort of rhythmic, rhythmic movement.

It's so yeah, so it's completely changed the course of my life.

Really?

Wow. So that's a big thing. Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm

sure there'll be loads of people who want to hear more about your

work about the research and therapeutic knitting in general,

how can they find out more about your work or get in touch with

you?

Well, my through the websites

stitchlinks.com, but also my book knit for health and

wellness, how to knit a flexible mind, has got a lot of advice

about therapeutic knitting and history of it. And I'm quite

happy for people to email me Betsan@Stitchlinks.com. Okay.

Yeah. So happy for anybody to contact me.

Lovely. I mean, Betson it's been an absolute

pleasure to hear all about your experiences. It's been so

interesting. And thank you so much for agreeing to come on the

podcast.

Thank you. I've really enjoyed it.

Thank you for listening to the Why I Knit

podcast. If you'd like to find out more about therapeutic

knitting you can follow me on Instagram

@knittingistherapeutic. Or check out my website therapeutic

knitting.org. To be notified when a new podcast is released.

Please subscribe on your podcast app.