I’ve always loved a journal. Everything about it. The feel of it in my hands. The soft, blank pages inside. Every journal is an opportunity. Every journal is full of potential. From the little locked diaries of my childhood to beautiful journals handmade by my sister to simple school notebooks I’d buy in a pinch while traveling. A collection of blank pages has always brought me joy, always made me feel at home.

Although I hadn’t planned for my career to focus on writing, when my oldest was a toddler and started to display a lot of difficult behaviours I had to leave my work in children’s mental health. It was too much for me to work with challenging kids all day and come home to my own. Him and I both deserved so much better than that. So I turned to writing and figuring out how to make writing easier for people, as well as how to have emotional, therapeutic experiences with writing.

When I returned (so I thought) to the mental health world by pursuing my masters in counseling and spirituality in 2020, I didn’t think I’d study writing. I had been working with a few different ideas, looking generally in the direction of menstruation, PMDD and spiritual healing. In the end though, my proposed study was deemed too big and I had to rework my plan, quickly.

My supervisor made the obvious suggestion: “What if you looked at something writing oriented? That seems like it would be a good fit…”

I agreed grudgingly but the research on therapeutic writing captivated me instantly, and looking back now I find it hard to believe I had ever planned to study anything else.

There is no lack of articles about writing as a therapeutic tool as it is used in so many ways to support therapeutic goals – from gratitude lists to letter writing to poetry therapy. This meant I had a lot to work with but also made it challenging to come up with something unique. I wanted to do more than write another meta-analysis. I wanted my research to make a thoughtful contribution, to say something that hadn’t been said before.

My research ultimately focused on treating trauma through autobiographical writing, which relates well to journaling – perhaps the purest form of autobiographical writing. Whether in locked diaries or beautifully bound journals, it is often only in those precious pages that we share our deepest truths.

From reading the work of Judith Herman, James Pennebaker, Sophia Richman and many more I started to connect the dots between trauma and autobiographical or life writing, identifying three key ways this form of writing works to process trauma and alleviate distress:

1. Breaking the Silence
2. Claiming Agency
3. Story Reconstruction

Breaking the Silence:

Historically there has been an expectation of silence from those who have experienced trauma whether it was soldiers returning from war or women and children living in abusive homes. This code of silence creates an internal tension for the survivor as they oscillate between wanting to hide or deny what happened to them, and the need to share their experience. Speaking their truth is seen as a foundational step in trauma recovery, relieving them of the impossible pull between pleasing others and being honest.

Even when little things happen, we are often told to “suck it up” or “just move on” even though we’ve been hurt. Boys are told not to cry. Girls are told to smile and be polite. We have a society that gaslights emotion every chance it gets. Thus, telling the truth about what has happened to us is an act of bravery.

Even if we only tell our journal, it can be the safe space we need.

In their 1986 landmark study, James Pennebaker and Sandra Beall found the act of writing one’s thoughts and emotions about an upsetting event significantly reduces your emotional AND physical stress symptoms. The researchers argue that the tension relief derives from releasing the state of inhibition, from no longer having to fight back your truth and stay silent.

It doesn’t even require the presence of another human, just the page is enough as one participant shared, “although I have not talked with anyone about what I wrote, I was finally able to deal with it, work through the pain instead of trying to block it out. Now it doesn’t hurt to think about it.” (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986, p.279).

When you choose to write your truth, be it openly for everyone to read or just for your very own eyes in your journal, there is power in putting your experiences on the page. There is power in breaking the silence, in releasing inhibition from your body.

Claiming Agency:

Now that you have chosen to be honest about what’s hurt you, you begin to craft the story on the page but it’s the story from your perspective. There’s no one there to criticize you and tell you that you’re remembering wrong or misunderstood. This is YOUR story, YOUR experience, YOUR thoughts and feelings and they get to land on the page the way YOU choose.

Taking agency over one’s story through writing it on the page is a powerful way to transform victim mentality and offer a perspective that moves the hurt person into a place of control. Whether in a memoir style story shared with the public, or simply in the descriptions filling a private journal, as we put our experiences on the page they are more certainly ours.

Dan McAdams, one of the pioneers in the research on autobiographical writing, highlights the importance of redemptive sequences which he defines as points in the narrative that “mark a transition in a life narrative account from an emotionally negative scene to a positive outcome or attribution about the self” (McAdams & McLean, 2013, p.233). Illuminating the presence of redemptive sequences in their life story is a common practice in my therapeutic workshops. Too often we don’t pay attention to the ways we’re doing well until they are right there on the page, looking us in the eye, praying we’ll give them just as much attention as we do our struggles.

Putting our stories on the page claims them as our own – the challenges we can grow from and the triumphs we can celebrate.

Story Reconstruction:

Now that truth has been spoken and agency claimed, another powerful healing mechanism comes into play. As the writer or journaler begins to craft the story on the page, they take on the work of close examination and story reconstruction. Fragmented memories are explored, better understood and woven into the bigger picture of what previously was distorted understanding of events. The writing process of putting the pieces back together heals some of the cognitive damage leading to trauma symptoms.

Again, this happens on a small scale with journaling. Imagine this, you come home at the end of a stressful day, angry that so and so did such and such. With a beverage of choice, you sit down at the kitchen table, or perhaps curl up on the couch, open your journal and start to explain what happened. As the words land on the page, they trigger a memory of something you had barely noticed in the moment. Slowly, you piece together what happened and realize that so and so was upset about something that had nothing to do with you. And you realize you reacted the way you did because it was just before lunch and you were hangry. Now that it makes sense, you feel less frustrated and irritated.

You sit back and take a deep breath, with this exhale you notice even more tension fade away. Your jaw relaxes, your shoulders drop, another deep breath comes even easier than the last.

For the long-time journaler, the therapeutic aspects of this practice lead to a rich inner life and deep self-understanding. When we choose to put our life on the page, the act of such examination works on multiple levels to enhance our understanding of, and thus compassion for, all our experiences. We understand ourselves and the world a little better, and have a healthy practice we can return to again and again when we’re in need of relief.

Just a bit of journaling lightens the load and brings relief.

It’s like magic, except I figured it out.

Since 2013, Parrish Wilson has been supporting people through therapeutic journaling workshops, with an open and accepting manner that provides a safe space for vulnerable writing. She holds a Masters in Counselling and Spirituality, and a Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing.

In her work with individuals and groups, Parrish crafts transformational writing experiences leading to deep personal transformation. She is the creator of Sacred Pages, a Seasonal Journaling Program to keep you aligned with your inner wisdom all year long.