The Healing Powers of Writing

By Jennifer Barraclough

Ever since written language developed thousands of years ago, it has been used as a channel for emotional expression. Many influential works of biography, fiction and poetry have been born out of their authors' personal experience of sickness, loss or war. Private individuals have turned their troubles into stories, and confided their feelings to their diary or, in modern times, to their blog.

The value of writing as therapy has been formally recognized in recent years. A number of research studies, some carried out on healthy volunteers and others on patients with various disease conditions, have shown benefits for both physical and mental health. Writing about an emotionally distressing topic of the person's own choice, even if upsetting in the short term, has been found to bring lasting long-term improvement in most cases. Writing about something neutral has little effect. Writing for periods of 20 or 30 minutes each day for several days is usually recommended and this can be done individually or in a group, by hand or on a computer. On-going work may take the form of a journal, focused on thoughts and feelings rather than outside events. It is best to let the words 'flow' without concern for spelling or grammar; technical errors can be corrected later on if desired.

Writing about pleasant topics is therapeutic too. Keeping a 'positive diary' to record things which have gone well in the day gone by, or a 'gratitude diary' of things you appreciate, is a proven method of lifting the spirits. Techniques of 'creative visualization' include writing a description of your ideal future as if it exists already, using the present tense. This is more powerful than simply imagining it.

Some prefer to keep the content of their writing completely private, others to discuss it with a therapist either face-to-face or by email. Special techniques may be used, for example writing a letter to someone with whom there is 'unfinished business'. Usually, such letters are not actually sent. If the person wants to forget or 'move on' from the issue, they might ceremoniously burn or tear up what they wrote.

Other forms of therapeutic writing are intended not for forgetting but for remembering. For example, many hospices and aged care facilities offer 'life review' programs in which a therapist or trained volunteer facilitates the preparation of a short autobiography. Not only is this process intended to be helpful to the writer, it will result in a tangible legacy for surviving relatives. Not everyone will want to undertake a project of this kind, which may entail confronting their own mortality, or revealing skeletons in the family cupboard.

Writing therapy promotes the open expression of emotion, and the reframing of problem situations so that they can be seen in a new light. In these respects it is similar to the other 'creative therapies' such as art therapy and music therapy, and to the many forms of psychotherapy, though it is likely that each of these modalities - art, music, talking, and writing - involve different neurological pathways in the brain, and different people will find some of them more helpful than others.

If the work is to be published more widely it will benefit other people besides the writer. Reading about how one person has coped with a particular kind of illness, bereavement or traumatic event can be very helpful to others facing a similar situation.

Like anything else, writing has its downside, especially if it takes up too much time and energy. But even if you are suffering the effects of lack of exercise, repetitive strain injury, social isolation from the 'real' world, or the pain of rejection by a publisher, it may be comforting to reflect that in many ways writing is good for you.

Jennifer Barraclough is a graduate of Oxford University Medical School and practiced for many years as a medical doctor in England before moving to New Zealand and becoming a Bach flower therapist and life coach. She has authored or edited several previous books including 'An Outline of Modern Psychiatry' 'Cancer and 'Emotion' and 'Enhancing Cancer Care', and published a number of research papers. She lives in Auckland with her husband and cats. To learn more, please visit: http://www.jenni.co.nz

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