Writing therapy: the healing power of putting pen to paper

According to Elizabeth Sullivan, a certified marital and family therapist in San Francisco, "one of the most important components of therapy writing is acquiring the ability to observe our ideas and feelings."

Writing also sorts through your thoughts and emotions, controls your feelings, and teaches you to articulate what you're going through, according to numerous studies.

What is writing therapy?

Writing therapy, commonly referred to as journal therapy, is a type of expressive therapy in which the act of writing and analyzing the written word is used as treatment. Writing therapy can assist the user in advancing their personal development, practicing creative expression, and feeling empowered and in charge of their lives.

Writing therapy is based on the idea that writing one's feelings helps to alleviate emotional distress. Leaders of writing groups also work in hospitals with people who are suffering from mental and physical illnesses. They help students build self-awareness and self-development in academic departments.

Benefits of therapeutic writing

For mental health

Writing therapy has been shown to be useful for a variety of diseases and mental problems.

In a study conducted by Professor James Pennebaker, healthy undergraduates were divided into four groups, three of the groups were invited to write about a painful occurrence in their life, while the fourth group was asked to write about something completely unrelated. After tracking all four groups for six months, researchers discovered that the three groups who wrote about traumatic incidents made fewer trips to the health center.

Gratitude journaling has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, but this more concentrated, emotional writing could be the next big thing in writing therapy. Writing can provide a healthy outlet to work through ups and downs, whether you utilize journal prompts prepared by a therapist or published in a book designed to assist people to work through emotions or simply put pen to paper and write freeform based on Pennebaker's original research.

For physical health

Writing can also boost physical well-being in addition to mental well-being. According to Dr. Pennebaker and Joshua Smyth, PhD. of Syracuse University, writing about emotions and stress can improve immunological function in HIV/AIDS, asthma, and arthritis patients.

The Journal of the American Medical Association published a pioneering research conducted by Smyth. In the study, patients with asthma and rheumatoid arthritis were instructed to write for three days in a row, 71 of them about the most stressful incident in their life and the rest on the emotionally neutral subject of their daily plans.

Four months later, when compared to 37 control patients, 70 patients in the stressful-writing group demonstrated improvement on objective clinical tests. Furthermore, individuals who wrote about stress improved more and deteriorated less than those who did not write about stress. "Writing assisted patients in getting better while also preventing them from going worse," Smyth explains.

There have also been researches showing that patients who write heal their biopsy wounds faster.

3 ways to conduct therapy writing

Freewriting. It's okay to write freely. Freewriting, often known as journaling, is just writing down whatever comes to mind. It's letting everything out without self-censorship. "I hate everyone," for example. “Why do I bother to get out of bed anyway?"

Some people believe that if they have thoughts they don't like (or are afraid of), they must be "true." As a result, they strive to avoid thinking about them. However, acknowledging and accepting our thoughts and feelings is far more beneficial; surprisingly, this often causes them to evolve into something new.

Pen poetry. “Poetry is a natural medicine; it is like a homeopathic tincture derived from the stuff of life itself ––your experience,” writes John Fox in Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making.

It can, however, be intimidating. Here's a poem-writing practice from Fox's book to get you started:

• Make a list of all the images from your childhood that come to mind. Choose the ones with pleasant memories.

• Write down the emotions that come to mind when you see these images, such as "wonder about flight" or "love and compassion for a creature's pain."

• Make a poem out of the information you've gathered. “As you focus on your image, stay in touch with your senses; listen for the image's voice and then convey the feeling evoked by your primary image.”

Compose a letter. Imagine you've received a letter from someone asking, "How are you doing, really?" and you need to respond. Another practice is to "Write to someone with whom you have 'unfinished business' without sending it,". The objective is for you to obtain a better grasp of your own sentiments and thoughts regarding the person.

How to start your therapeutic journal

Try these five steps to get started:

1. Choose a specific time during the week to exercise, such as 15 minutes three to four times a week.

2. Experiment with a variety of techniques: It could be handwriting, typing on a Word document, or recording voice recordings. It's all about expressing yourself.

3. Choose the best location for your work, considering the mood, temperature, and design of the space, all of which might affect your concentration.

4. Don't judge yourself too harshly: Write as though no one else will read it; this will prevent you from "putting on a show" instead of sticking to what comes naturally.

5. Examine your work: It's a good idea to check in on your earlier entries from time to time to see if they can help you come up with ideas for your upcoming pages.

Conclusion

After all, according to a number of psychologists who utilize writing with their patients, the power of writing to heal lies not in pen and paper, but in the writer's mind. We hope you learned something new from this article, and we hope you'll think of writing therapy the next time you're thinking about visiting a therapist.