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Finding the write way Keeping a journal can be an effective tool in healing emotional wounds Tuesday, August 04, 1998 By Loriann Hoff Oberlin
In the early 1980s, Anita Johnson entered two 12-step programs, hoping to put behind her years of depression that had brought her to the brink of suicide.
As one way to overcome her "personal negativity," one of the program's sponsors encouraged her to start a daily journal.
"Words were always powerful in my life," said Johnson, 50, of Ohioville.
"I chose to make a gratitude list."
The former school teacher has a brighter outlook these days, and she attributes much of her recovery to the daily passages she pens.
Writing has been recognized for its healing power since biblical times, when apostle Paul wrote encouraging healing letters to church friends.
Increasingly, psychologists and therapists are advocating what's known as "journaling" or "scriptotherapy" as a way to release emotion, frustration and fears, or even inhibitions. It has been used in treatment for eating disorders and other problems with psychological roots, and has become popular enough to have celebrity advocates.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey has recommended keeping a gratitude journal, highlighting the theories of Sarah Ban Breathnach. Breathnach's book, "Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude" (Warner Books), encourages people to keep writings and lists of things they should be thankful for to keep a positive focus.
Indeed, keeping a journal can teach people to become their own therapist. As insurers cut back on mental health coverage, journaling can be a first resort for many people, and an adjunct to therapy for those who do seek traditional counseling.
Taking an objective look
"Some people might not feel comfortable with journaling, but there's something about writing down your feelings where you can look at them more objectively," said Murrysville psychologist Cynthia Peterson-Handley.
When Johnson sought help at age 32, she joined Overeaters Anonymous. She also attended meetings for Al-Anon, a program for people who are surrounded by alcoholism.
"I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired," she recalled. "It was my own personal negativity that I discovered even back to age 7 when I couldn't even imagine that anything in a Christmas box would be for me," she said.
Writing down her thoughts helped her instill a more positive attitude, Johnson said.
Through her therapy she learned "that rather than try to erase the negativity which leaves a void, I could replace the negative with a positive," Johnson said.
Dr. Ruth Kane, director of the St. Francis Hospital Eating Disorders Program, said writing is used when trying to integrate the body and mind.
"An eating disorder patient tends not to think about the whys and wheres of their actions," she said. Putting feelings down on paper helps them " find the answers to why they want to be perfect, and look perfect."
Typical St. Francis patients might create a food journal in which they describe how they were thinking and feeling about what they ate. Since a fair amount of eating disorder patients report past traumatic experiences associated with food, journaling continues to bring about awareness. "Some report obesity and the derision that they suffered from their peers," Kane said.
Judith McKnight Krynski, a Wilkins psychologist and mediator, also advocates the journal approach, particularly with inhibited teens and adults.
"Being able to sit down and write about something can put a little distance between you and the problem," she said. This type of thinking allows people to see multiple facets of their struggle.
Committing thoughts to paper also allows the writer to go back after time and look at what he wrote. Often, over the months, or years, a new perspective emerges. "Understanding of oneself comes over time, not all at once," Krynski said.
Stress reduction
Journal writing can bring other health benefits. Less inhibited people suffer fewer episodes of stress and stress-related diseases.
James W. Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Texas in Austin, has examined the healing power of the pen in studies funded by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.
In his book, "Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions," Pennebaker explained that people who wrote about their deepest feelings experienced heightened immune function.
Research volunteers were split into two groups. One group wrote about major trauma or other deep thoughts and the second group wrote about trivial matters. Pennebaker then took blood samples from each participant, and placed their white cells - the infection fighters - in petri dishes with foreign substances. He found that samples taken from the journaling participants proliferated more to fight off infection better.
This heightened immune function was most pronounced after the last writing day, but the results were still evident six weeks after the study, he said. Also, the visits to health centers because of illness dropped for those who wrote about deep thoughts compared with those who wrote about trivialities.
Whether a person uses gratitude lists, personal diaries, journals or letters, writing requires privacy to allow the true release of emotion. "All of us need privacy since someone could take these comments out of context," said Peterson-Handley. "It's really important to have a private place to put down your thoughts and feelings."
Mental health specialists caution that scriptotherapy is only one tool in healing emotional wounds. The written word can be therapeutic and cathartic, but it can also be used as an excuse to avoid appropriate action or as an unhealthy, in fact obsessive, rumination that could impede therapeutic goals.
"Most times, journaling cannot take the place of running things by another warm human being who can add a few words of understanding, encouragement and support," Krynski said.
Pennebaker agrees. "Writing should not serve as a substitute for friends. If friends are unavailable, psychotherapists and other people in the helping profession will listen to your problems and help keep your sense of reality intact," he said.
For Johnson, journaling has become a daily habit. She writes in the wee hours of the morning, mostly if she cannot sleep. "But sometimes I do set my alarm if there's something so hot I need to get it on paper. It's my only time alone," she said.
"Through the years my once painful writing has become a list of the blessings that purposeful searching finds each day," Johnson said. "Looking at life through the gratitude lens, a world of good came into focus.
"People who know me now
find it difficult to believe I was ever depressed and suicidal."
Loriann Hoff Oberlin is a free-lance writer in Monroeville.
Tips on journal writing
If you're intrigued by the idea of journal writing as preventive maintenance, here are some tips the experts have shared:
Resources
Books:
Web sites:
www.aliveness.net/journaling.htm
http://207.158.243.119/html/reasons.html
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?Start at a quiet time when you're relaxed. Instrumental music is sometimes helpful to get the creative spirit flowing.