Writing, A Therapeutic Pleasure
Throughout our lives we experience many different feelings, but it is not enough just to give them a voice; they need to be written down, brought to light to be seen in the words and phrases on paper. Writing is real therapy.
Write if you are sad, if you are happy, if your love is gone, or if someone close to you has died. Write and don’t stop until you express all your feelings and sensations. Don’t think, just write.
In 1999 a study was carried out in the United States by the American Medical Association that studied the effects of writing on several patients with various types of illnesses.
Asthma patients improved their breathing levels, arthritis patients felt relief from pain, so the positive effects of writing were proven.
In a June 2008 study by the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management revealed that a group of cancer patients who wrote for 20 minutes once a week experienced significant improvement in their emotional health and greater well-being by reading their stories to others. .
One of the great advocates of writing as a form of therapy is Dr. James Pennebaker. In his book “Open Your Heart: The Power of Healing Through the Expression of Emotions,” he says that writing about unpleasant experiences helps lift moods, dilute anger, and strengthen the immune system. He also gives some advice for using writing as therapy:
– Ask yourself: How long have I felt this way?
If the autoresponder is “too long”, help is needed and the first step may be to start writing.
– Commit to writing twenty minutes for four consecutive days.
Studies show that this time is enough to build a story about what concerns us and, thus, let off steam.
– Write non-stop
Don’t worry about the syntax or spelling, or the meaning of what you write. Release the feelings, let the emotions flow.
Try to write a story that connects the various aspects of your life: work, emotional relationships, etc. By describing in words what concerns you in each area of your life, you will see the connections that can exist.
The Therapeutic Benefits of Writing
Writing has undeniable positive benefits on many aspects of our lives: it eases our anguish, helps us shape, understand and resolve what concerns us.
Some advantages of writing as therapy are as follows:
1- Stimulates our creativity
Writing is very creative; it helps us to express ourselves better, to find new solutions, new ideas, to imagine and dream.
2- Helps us manage our emotions
When we write we pour all our emotions onto paper. We can laugh or cry as we write. What we convey through our words helps us to manage our emotions and understand them from another point of view.
3- Allows self-knowledge
What we write comes from the heart, from our deepest being; putting feelings into words makes us realize how we really are, how life circumstances affect us, how anger and frustration we feel. We name feelings and face them “face to face”.
4- Give us the opportunity to share our feelings
We can write to ourselves or show it to others and share our feelings and experiences.
Showing it to other people allows us to evaluate other points of view and receive empathy from those close to us.
Therapeutic Writing Techniques
To start writing as therapy, the essential thing is to let your imagination run free and follow some simple advice.
– Write twenty minutes a day for four days.
– Write automatically, don’t worry about the meaning of sentences, spelling, etc.
– Write about the issues that concern you the most, about the aspects of your life that you think are most important.
– Share what you write with others or keep it to yourself. The important thing is not to stop writing.
– If you need to solve a problem with someone, write a letter, even if you don’t send it and the person never reads it.
And above all, write your story with a happy and lively ending.
