How Keeping a Journal Will Make You Feeling Better Instantly

When you are feeling down for some reason or even no reason at all, and you find there’s no one there to help you release the burden, first try to be there for yourself. You can start it by journal therapy.

The Center for Journal Therapy defines journal therapy as “the purposeful and intentional use of reflective writing to further mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health and wellness.”

It is simply done by writing down your thoughts, emotions, as well as experiences. However, it is different from jotting down your daily activities and events as you do with a diary.

Therapeutic journaling is much deeper than that.

It is about writing to help you comprehend your internal experiences, learn and make new points of view from the challenges you experience.

Benefits of therapeutic journaling

As many therapists use therapeutic journaling as part of their treatment, it brings many benefits, such as:

- Keep a record of ideas and concepts, or things you learn in therapy

- Track your progress

- Help to make sense of thoughts and experiences, and organizing them in a meaningful way

- Help you recognize patterns in thoughts, feelings, or behavior

- Provide an opportunity for self-reflection

- Provide an opportunity to consider experiences from alternative perspectives or practice helpful thoughts

- Boost immune system

How the journal therapy works

You might have seen in some movies where the actor is in his therapy session, and the therapist reads the journal of the actor and begins to ask questions to the actor.

A therapist might use journal writing as a method of communication between the person in therapy and the therapist. The reason might be because people tend to be more open in writing than talking.

At the end of the therapy session, the therapist might assign homework to the person in therapy that would be the main topic in the next session.

Journal therapy has been used in treatment for numerous conditions, among others are:

- Post-traumatic stress

- Anxiety

- Depression

- Obsessive-compulsive issues

- Grief and lose

- Issues relating to chronic illness

- Substance abuse

- Eating disorders

- Interpersonal relationship issues

- Communication skills issues

- Self-esteem issues

- Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)

- Mindfulness practices

- Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)

- Psychodynamic therapy

- Motivational interviewing

- Solution-focused therapy (SFT)

- Holistic therapy

How to do therapeutic journaling

Basically, there are no exact rules on how to keep a therapeutic journal. However, here are some tips for you who are trying to start one:

Make it a habit

In order to gain from the writing therapy, good intentions aren’t enough. You need to commit to writing every day. Make a schedule by choosing the best time for you to write, whether before you start the day or at the end of the day, or maybe you can set the exact time to write, for example, every 7.00 pm.

Find a quiet place to write

Find a specific place that is free of any disturbances both from people and electronic devices so you can write freely and comfortably.

Choose a topic to write

While diaries are usually written without a specific topic, therapeutic writing requires you to explore a different topic each session so that you can delve into your emotions to recognize your own sadness, anxiety, anger, shame, or guilt.

Keep in mind that if your emotions are strong and you find it difficult to handle them, please immediately stop writing and seek help from a therapist.

Start writing

You might need some time between 15 to 20 minutes to dive into your thoughts and feelings on the topic you have chosen. When you are ready to write, remember that there’s no limitation to what you’re going to write.

Just keep writing even when it leads to different thoughts and ideas. Let your ideas flow, and don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or structure.

What to write about

There are many methods in journal writing that the therapists use in treatment, and if you are interested to do writing therapy, to a certain extent you can start it by yourself. Here’s the list of the ideas you might want to write about. Please do keep in mind that you need to immediately consult with a professional therapist if you find your emotions disturb you too much.

• Photographs

Some emotions might be triggered by photographs and you can try one too. You can start by picking the most memorable photograph for you and begin asking questions to yourself, such as: “what am I feeling when looking at the photo?” or “what do I want to say to the people, places, or things in the picture?”

• Letter Writing

You might have something to say to someone or maybe yourself. By writing a letter to the one you have been wanting to talk to, you might find it as a therapy to release the burden in your mind and heart. For instance, you might want to write a letter to your best friend who betrayed you in the past.

• List of 100

When you are trying to reflect on yourself, you might want to start by listing as many things as possible at a certain aspect of your life. For example, 100 reasons to wake up earlier, 100 things to be grateful for, or 100 things I want to do with my life.

While listing them one by one, you might also want to add the descriptions for each item you mention to comprehend more about yourself.