Writing as Therapy

Someone once said creative writing is like iodine to a wound. It cuts like a knife, but the pain is temporary. The end result is a healed wound. Perhaps this fact could increase the number of people who use writing as therapy, and decrease the number of suicides and mentally ill in the world. It has helped me and many others that I have read of, and I feel it is a very helpful and safe way of releasing tensions.

Dozens of studies have found that most people, from grade-schoolers to nursing-home residents, med students to prisoners, feel happier and healthier after writing about deeply traumatic memories, says James Pennebaker, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Texas and leader or co-leader of many of the studies.

“The effect isn’t just emotional,” Pennebaker says. One of his studies, published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in April 1988, found that college students had more active T-lymphocyte cells, an indication of immune system stimulation, six weeks after writing about stressful events. Other studies have found that people tend to take fewer trips to the doctor, function better in day-to-day tasks, and score higher on tests of psychological well being after such writing exercises.

I, myself, have found writing to be very therapeutic. When I write I lose myself in all my emotions. When I sit down and begin to write, it doesn’t matter whether I'm writing just to write or actually writing for a reason, it’s as if every emotion comes to the front of my mind and I just spill it all out. I don’t keep a journal, but I create stories. All of my stories are true, or mostly true, I make my problems the plot of the story and fix them through my characters.

After my parents got divorced I, like most kids, blamed myself. That alone was enough to screw me up emotionally. This was before I would write stories; at this point it wasn’t even something that interested me. Without having writing to keep me sane I found other ways, ways that were not the best. I tried so many different things to make me feel better, but most of them just had a worse after effect. One of those was cutting, every time I got upset I would just cut. I soon learned counteracting the emotional pain with physical pain wasn’t good for me, but I still did it.

By eighth grade I was an emotional wreck, and I was afraid to talk to people about anything, so I just held everything in. Until one day, when I was watching a show on tv and the girl was writing a note to the person she was mad at, but didn’t intend on sending it to that person. I thought it was pretty silly but I tried it anyway; it really helped, so that’s what I started doing, and it has kept me from cutting. I eventually got bored of writing note after note, and I was never good at keeping a journal, so that’s where my story writing started. Now every time I feel sad or mad I make a story, and it really clears things up for me.

One of my inspirations is Anne Frank and her diary, which she named Kitty. Through the toughest time in her life she was able to stay calm and be strong for her family because she had Kitty to “write to”. Even though the Nazis took pretty much everything from her, she still had her diary. Anne wrote in her diary, “I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart. The reason for starting a diary; it is that I have no such real friend… I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” I have never related to something so much.

Writing to right a wrong is advocated by management consultant Vijai Shanker: “If we keep something in our mind, the tension keeps mounting. Writing is good therapy because it allows you to express yourself.” In a sense, it is just you, your thoughts, and a sheet of paper, and don’t worry, there is enough paper out there.

There are many forms of writing; there are many styles. We have different ways of expressing ourselves; we also have varied reasons for doing so. But when pen and paper make contact, thoughts are released and the mind gets more focused as we are instinctively drawn towards the quiet center of ourselves.

Writing is a disciplinary act that gives new insights into yourself and your relationships. It is also completely honest- for what do you gain by lying to yourself? It is a therapy prescribed for everybody, not just for the disturbed, distressed, or dying. Writing is a spiritual quest; it is the soul searching for truth.