Benefits of writing as therapy

Have you ever felt downcast, without strength? Do you feel that stress wears out your well-being and routine seems like a dead end? Of course, we all go through difficult situations that affect our mood.

Writing can be a very powerful resource to regain stability in times of crisis; It will help you to face your problems and it will make you see the possible solutions in another light.

• It may interest you: "History of writing: its development in Antiquity"

Art as a therapeutic weapon

Art can be healing. In general, any activity that is enjoyable, while keeping our mind off worries, will have a positive impact on our mental health.

For people who possess a talent for art, dancing, drawing, playing an instrument or painting are great ways to channel emotional development and promote well-being psychological. You may consider yourself poorly gifted at creating art, but you don't need specific skills to enjoy these benefits. There are ways to be more creative and express your emotions, which do not require any kind of virtuosity.

A good resource can be therapeutic writing. You are not required to be a prolific author or a poet, all you need is a piece of paper, a pen and the motivation to write.

What is therapeutic writing?

Also known as an emotional diary, it is exactly what it sounds like: keeping a diary, where you will record how you have felt throughout the day, for therapeutic purposes.

Writing as therapy is affordable, simple, and can be a good complement to other treatments. It can be practiced individually, just us and a pencil, or supervised by a mental health professional. It is also possible to share it with other people, in group therapy focused on writing.

Whichever way we choose, writing will contribute to our personal growth, to better express and communicate our emotions and will promote the feeling of having our lives and thoughts under control.

It is not difficult to see the potential that therapeutic writing can have, you just have to look at the poets and storytellers of all times who define the contact of paper and pen as a cathartic experience. As Henry Miller states in his book "Sexus": "A man writes to expel all the poison that he has accumulated because of his false way of living."

Basic differences between the conventional and the emotional diary

Although writing as therapy may seem as simple as journaling, it is much more than that. We can distinguish three major differences between a conventional diary and an emotional diary:

• Who decides to write a diary does so freely, without following rules and noting what comes to mind. while therapeutic writing is more patterned and almost always based on specific guidelines and training.
• When writing a diary we focus on capturing the experiences as they occur, while in an emotional diary we must reflect on them, interact with each situation and analyze what we think and feel at each moment before write it out.
• Journal writing is an absolutely personal and private experience. Instead, an emotional journal almost always carries the advice and guidance of a mental health professional.

There is also another big difference between these two writing practices: the increase in our emotional well-being.

Benefits of writing as a therapeutic tool

Keeping a simple diary can certainly be useful, since improves memory, helps to remember small events of the day to day or simply helps to relax at the end of the day. Although these benefits are not minor, with therapeutic writing we can go further.

In people who have experienced a traumatic or very stressful event, expressing themselves through writing can have a great healing effect. In fact, writing about our traumatic experiences for 15 minutes for four days in a row provides an improvement in our mood, which is maintained over time (Baikie & Wilhelm, 2005).

Other studies conclude that patients with asthma and arthritis, who wrote about the most traumatic experiences of their lives, experienced a marked improvement in the evaluation of their disease (Smyth, Stone, Hurewitz, & Kaell, 1999).

A recent study suggests that this type of writing can even improve the immune system, although, in this case, the practice must be maintained more consistently (Murray, 2002).

In addition to all these concrete results on a physical and emotional level, regularly practicing therapeutic writing can help us to find more meaning in our experiences, see things from another perspective and bring out the positive side of events unpleasant. It can also lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves and our environment that is difficult to achieve without emotion-centered writing (Tartakovsky, 2015).

Usually, therapeutic writing has been shown to be effective in treating many mental illnesses and conditions, including:

• Drug addiction
• Eating Disorders
• Low self-esteem
• Posttraumatic stress
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Grief or loss processes
• Relationships

How to keep an emotional journal

There are several ways to start writing for therapeutic purposes. If you are undergoing therapy with a psychologist, he or she can tell you the best way to start.

If you are thinking of getting started with this type of writing on your own before consulting with a therapist, here are some tips to help you.

First of all, you must choose the form that best suits you to obtain a better result:

• Use the format that you feel most comfortable with, no matter if it is the classic newspaper, a simple notebook, a computer program or a blog.
• If it makes you feel more motivated, you can personalize your notebook by decorating it to your liking.
• Make it a point to write every day and decide how, when and where you are going to write every day; this way you will create a habit.
• Write down why you decided to start writing in the first place. This could be the first entry in your journal.

Then follow these five steps:

• Think about what you want to write about. Write it down.
• Reflect on it: take a breath, close your eyes and focus.
• Explore your thoughts and how you feel. Start writing and don't stop.
• Control the time. Write for 5 to 15 minutes at a time.
• Reread and review what you have written and summarize it in a sentence or two.

Finally, as you write you should keep in mind that:

• It doesn't matter if you write a few lines or several pages; write at your own pace.
• Don't worry too much about the topic you're writing about, just focus on taking your time writing and keeping your full attention on it.
• It is not about writing well in a formal sense, the important thing is to write down what makes sense to you and that flows naturally.
• Write as if you were only going to read it, with that you will be more authentic and not seek recognition.

It may be that at first it will be difficult for you, you already know that the first step is always the hardest. Staying interested and not abandoning the commitment will be your next challenge.

Ideas and tips for writing your emotional journal

If you feel stuck and don't know how to continue your writing, here are some ideas that can help you:

• Write letters; They can be directed at yourself or others.
• Automatic writing. Write down anything that comes to mind.
• Make an outline. You can write down your problem in the center and draw branches that start from it showing different aspects.
• Use a photograph from your personal album and ask yourself: “How do I feel looking at these photos? What feelings do the people, places or things that appear in them awaken in me?
• Finish these sentences: "What worries me the most is ...", "I find it hard to sleep when ...", "My happiest memory is ...".
• Make lists. For example, things that make me sad, reasons to get up in the morning, things that I like, things that make me smile, etc.
• If there is something that worries you especially, write it in the third person; it will help you gain perspective.
• Thought dump. Think of a specific topic, such as an event from your childhood, without paying attention to grammar or spelling, and just write non-stop for 5 minutes.

These tips can serve as an introduction to writing as therapy to improve your balance personal and maintain control over your mind, while considering the possibility of seeking help psychological. At the same time, they will help you to improve your self-esteem and, above all, to know yourself.

Bibliographic references:

• Burns, George (2001). 101 Healing Stories: Using Metaphors in Therapy, Wiley.
• García Pintos, Claudio (2001). "The Logotherapy in Stories"; Ed. San Pablo, Buenos Aires.
• Saint Girons, Cecilia (2005). "Reading and its Therapeutic Effect".