Writing therapy
Online and distance interventions are useful for those who prefer to remain anonymous and/or are not ready to disclose their most private thoughts and anxieties in a face-to-face situation.
[9][8] In contrast, control participants were asked to write as objectively and factually as possible about neutral topics (e.g., a particular room or their plans for the day) without revealing their emotions or opinions.
[12] This was shown by measuring lymphocyte response to the foreign mitogens phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) and concanavalin A (ConA) just prior to and six weeks after writing.
This suggests that written disclosure may reduce the physiological stress on the body caused by inhibition, although it does not necessarily mean that disinhibition is the causal mechanism underlying these biological effects.
[15] In related research, Travagin, Margola, Dennis, and Revenson compared cognitive-processing instructions to standard expressive writing for adolescents with peer problems.
[16] This research demonstrated better long-term social adjustment compared to standard expressive writing and greater increased positive affect for those adolescents who reported more peer problems than most.
[16] An additional line of inquiry, which has particular bearing on the difference between talking and writing, derives from Robert Ornstein's studies into the bicameral structure of the brain.
[citation needed] However, following up with clients after a longer amount of time to measure those effects finds evidence of many mental and physical health benefits.
Recent research has explored how narrative medicine and expressive writing, independently, may play a therapeutic role in chronic diseases such as cancer.
[29] Recent experiments, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses examining the effects of expressive writing on ameliorating negative cancer symptoms yielded primarily non-significant initial results.
[32] Even if an expressive writing intervention cannot directly impact cancer prognosis, it may play an important role in mediating factors such as chronic stress, trauma, depression, and anxiety.
[citation needed] It is widely acknowledged that trauma is prevalent among veterans, and research indicates that writing therapy can play a significant role in their self-healing journey.
Neil P Baird defines mythologization as the process of establishing standardized narratives that transform uncontrollable events into ones that are contained and predictable.
[33] Janis Haswell expands on this concept by highlighting how individuals can utilize writing to manipulate and reshape the traumatic events they have experienced.
[citation needed] Participants can also receive therapy sessions via e-text and/or voice with video, and complete online questionnaires, handouts, workout sheets, and similar exercises.
Given the huge disjunction between the amount of mental illness compared with the paucity of skilled resources, new ways have been sought to provide therapy other than drugs.
[citation needed] In a 2016 randomized controlled trial, expressive writing was tested against direction to an online support group for individuals with anxiety and depression.
[41] The oldest and most widely practiced form of self-help through writing is that of keeping a personal journal or diary—as distinct from a diary or calendar of daily appointments—in which the writer records their most meaningful thoughts and feelings.
One individual benefit is that the act of writing puts a powerful brake on the torment of endlessly repeating troubled thoughts to which everyone is prone.
Kathleen Adams states that through the act of journal writing, the writer is also able to "literally [read] his or her own mind" and thus "to perceive experiences more clearly and thus feels a relief of tension".
[43] Robert Baden elaborates how poetry allows a wide range of emotions to be portrayed to describe the feeling or what the writer had felt within their experience to later allow others to engage and relate to their work.
[45] Dale M. Bauer provides insight that poetry has the power to allow people to be able to talk about inner suffering without judgment and rather gain the ability to have others be able to compare and connect with the writer's experience.
By sharing this method with fellow veterans and examining its positive impacts, Corley’s research indicates the concise nature and inherent significance of poetry works greatly for self-healing.
Benjamin Batzer recognized that only the writer knows what they have gone through, so the first steps into healing and coping with what life has given, we must first be able to talk about these experiences to take back the power and decide the next point of action.
