Writing Your Wrongs

Writing Your Wrongs

WRITING YOUR WRONGS

From American Health, January/February '91, pp 64-67.

After 10 years of research, a noted psychologist finds that keeping a journal of your innermost feelings can improve your health.

Gone are the days when we used to sit for hours writing long letters to friends and family, with pen and paper we took time to explore our feelings and express our deepest beliefs. The world we now inhabit is too hurried for that. But while using the phone and the fax machine is a time-saver, have we lost something in the process?

Recent research suggests there are distinct advantages to the old-fashioned method of communication. The act of writing can be an avenue to that interior place where, free of pain and doubt, we can confront traumas and put them to rest - and heal both body and mind.

The words we write can have a healing power even if they're never read by another human being. In our studies we've asked people to use an ancient form of writing: keeping a journal of their deepest thoughts and feelings, which they might not want to share even with close friends. Using writing as a means of confession, we've found, can measurably improve physical and mental health.

The power of confession, written or oral, has been recognized in many cultures over many centuries. Long before the Spanish conquered the New World, Indians of North and South American had elaborate confession rituals at which tribe members disclosed their transgressions to each other. Eastern and Western religions from Buddhism to Catholicism have used rituals of confession as well. A growing number of Americans pay millions of dollars to therapists and self-help groups to share feelings they're afraid to tell the world. And the last year or two have brought a distinctly `90s invention: 1-900 confession hot lines, where anonymous callers recount their sins.

In the late 1970s I embarked on a large research project to determine the extent to which it's healthy for us to express what's stored deep inside. Now, more than a decade later, the data show a clear correlation between confessional writing and greater health.

In September 1983, along with Sandra Beall, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, I asked a group of student volunteers to write about either traumatic experiences or superficial topics. As a further refinement, those who wrote about traumas would either: 1) just vent their emotions, 2) just write down the facts of 3) write about facts and emotions at the same time. They kept journals, writing 15 minutes a day over four days. We planned to evaluate their health by counting the number of visits each person made to the student health center for illness in the five and a half months following the experiment compared with the two and a half months before.

For the students the immediate impact of the study was far more powerful than we had ever imagined. Several cried as they wrote. Many told us they found themselves dreaming about their writing topics over the four days of the study. Essay after essay revealed people's most intimate feelings. Many of the stories depicted profound human tragedies.

One student recounted how his father took him into the backyard on a hot summer night and coolly announced his plans to divorce the boy's mother and move to another town. Although the boy was only nine years old at the time, he vividly remembers his father saying, “Son, the problem with me and your mother was having you kids in the first place. Things haven't been the same since you and your sister were born.”

On all four days of the experiment, one student detailed how, when she was 10, her mother asked her to pick up her toys because her grandmother was visiting that evening. She didn't clean up, and that night her grandmother slipped on one of the toys and broker her hip. The grandmother died a week later during hip surgery. Eight years later, the girl still blamed herself every day.

Another student described being sexually abused by her grandfather when she was 13, and wrote about the terrible conflict she experienced. On one hand she admitted the physical pleasure of his touching her and the love she felt for her grandfather. On the other, she suffered with the knowledge that what they were doing was wrong, that he was betraying her trust.

Other essays disclosed the torture of a woman not able to tell her parents she was gay, a young man's feelings of loss over the death of his dog, and the anger of three different people as they tried to cope with their parents' divorces. Family abuse, alcoholism, suicide attempts and public humiliation were also frequent topics.

Boosting Mood and Health

While these accounts were very moving, we were discouraged to find that writing didn't help these students feel better initially - just the opposite. In fact, it seemed that we were inventing a new way to make people depressed.

But when our volunteers completed additional questionnaires four months after the experiment, we found that their moods had improved. Writing about their deepest thoughts had started a process that resulted in a lighter mood and more positive outlook.

Almost six months after the experiment, the student health center was able to tell us he number of times each student had sough treatment for an illness. Those numbers brought good news, too. People who wrote about their deepest thoughts and feelings about a traumatic event became healthier - they visited the health service for treatment much less often than other groups after the study.

In the months before the experiment, everyone had gone to the health center at the same rate. After the experiment, however, those who wrote detailed accounts of their traumatic experiences went less than .5 times a month on average - a 50% drop in the monthly visitation rate. To get this healing benefit, a complete accounting was necessary. People who wrote just about their emotions surrounding a trauma, or just about the facts, averaged almost 1.5 visits per person to the health center - the same rate as those who wrote about superficial topics and avoided difficult subjects entirely.

While I was thrilled to find that writing about one's troubles could be so therapeutic, the thrill was tempered with a little anxiety. I had to know whether these findings were really trustworthy, and as quickly as possible.

I decided to join forces with Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, a clinical psychologist, and her husband, Ronald Glaser, an immunologist, both with the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus. Together, they were blazing a trail by showing that overwhelming experiences such as divorce, major exams in college and even strong feelings of loneliness aversely affected immune function. Their most recent finding was that relaxation therapy in elderly people could improve the action of the immune system. Their work was ground-breaking because it relied on precise, state-of-the-art techniques to measure the action of T-lymphocytes, natural killer cells and other immune markers in the blood. Further, unlike most researchers in immunology, Jan and Ron had a sophisticated understanding of psychology.

The experiment we did together was similar to the first study, with the important difference being that the students consented to have their blood drawn the day before they started writing, after the last writing session, and again six weeks later. The finding were unequivocal. Pep0le who wrote thoughtfully and emotionally about traumatic experiences showed heightened immune function compared with those who wrote about superficial topics. Although this effect was most pronounced after the last day of writing, it tended to persist six weeks after the study. In addition, health-center visits for illness dropped once again for the people who wrote about traumas compared with those who wrote on the trivial topics.

In the surveys we sent out several months after each experiment, we asked people to describe in their own works what long-term effects, if any, the writing process had on them. Everyone who had written about traumas described the study in positive terms. Rather than saying it felt good to get negative emotions off their chests, the students said they now understood themselves better. One said, “Although I have not talked with anyone about what I wrote, I was finally able to deal with it and work through the pain instead of trying to block it out. Now it doesn't hurt to think about it.”

Observations like this are telling us in very concrete terms that our thought processes can be healed.

Putting it on Paper

How can you best confront the upsetting events in your past and free yourself from them? My recommendations are based not only on our experiments but also on my experiences. When writing about personal difficulties, be your own researcher. Try different topics and approaches. You may find a resolution to your conflicts in a way that works uniquely for you, not for anyone else. If you become overly distraught, back off and approach the topic more gradually. With these caveats in mind, here are some basic approaches to the writing method.

What should your writing topic be? It isn't necessary to write about the most traumatic experience of your life. If you find yourself dwelling on any event or experience too much of the time, writing about it can help resolve it in your mind. Similarly, if there is something you would like to tell others but can't for fear of embarrassment or punishment, express it on paper.

Whatever your topic, it's critical to explore both the objective experience and your feelings about it. Let go and express your deepest emotions: what you feel about it and why you feel that way. Write continuously; don't worry about grammar, spelling or sentence structure. If you run out of things to say or reach a mental block, just repeat what you have already written.

When and where should you write? Try to write for 15 minutes a day in a setting where you will not be interrupted. Although many people write every day in journals, most of the entries don't grapple with fundamental psychological issues - the goal of this approach.

Where you write depends on your circumstances. Our studies suggest that the more special the setting, the better. Find a unique, comfortable, isolated room where you will not be interrupted or bothered by unwanted sounds, sights, or smells.

What should you do with what you have written? Planning to show your journal to someone else can affect your mindset while writing. From a health perspective, you will be better off making yourself the only audience. That way, you don't have to rationalize or justify yourself to suit another person's perspective.

What can you expect to feel during and after writing? You may feel sad or depressed immediately afterward. These feelings usually dissipate within an hour: in rare cases they may last a day or two. Indeed, the vast majority of our volunteers report feeling a heightened sense of relief, happiness, and contentment that last up to six months after the writing studies are concluded.

I should point out that exploring your deepest thoughts and feelings on paper is not a panacea. If you're coping with death, divorce, or some other major trauma, you won't feel better instantly after writing. You should, however, have a clearer understanding of your feelings and emotions as well as your objective situation. In other words, writing should give you some distance and perspective on your life. And that can lead to positive changes in your physical and mental health.

James W. Pennebaker, a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is the author of The Psychology of Physical Symptoms and coeditor of Mass Psychogenic Illness.