Don’t take journaling for granted
WRITE STUFF: No longer a teen pastime, expressive writing can improve health
Journals and diaries. You probably think they’re only used by giggly teenage girls or distinguished elder statesmen. You might want to think again. Or should I say reflect again. The concept of keeping a journal has undergone a dramatic transition.
No longer thought of as a record or a muse only for the young, prominent and famous people from all walks of life are tapping into its reflexive function as a means of healing, self-exploration and self-directed change.
Proof that it is gaining popularity is in the number of journal-related books, which has skyrocketed from six in 1985, to more than 5,000 listed on Amazon.com today.
Marina Eason, a Calgary resident, has kept a journal as both creative outlet and confidant since she was a teen, but when her unborn child was diagnosed with short bowel syndrome in 2008, she started to look at the page in a new light.
“I had so many emotions and unanswered questions, I had to turn to my journal to sort out my feelings,” Eason said.
Her daughter Hayden is in and out of the hospital regularly. Through it all, the 29-year-old mother of two has continued to keep a journal by her bed to reflect on her experiences, deal with relationships and make life decisions: “Putting things down on paper helps me learn what I want to do emotionally, physically and spiritually. It also lifts a huge weight from my shoulders and helps me sleep so why wouldn’t I journal?”
Eason is talking about reflective or expressive writing, the new wave in journaling, which quietly started in 1966 when New York psychotherapist Ira Progoff researched the lives of creative people at Drew University. Out of his work came the Intensive Journal method, a process that empowers users to pursue selfdirected change and their creative potential by combining journaling with an organized format.
University of Calgary psychologist Judy Chew says structure is key when proposing journaling as an adjunct to therapy. She’s seen the moods of too many clients take a downward spiral after they’ve used their journals as a dumping ground for negative feelings.
“Sometimes the mix of feelings is overwhelming and debilitating. Journaling with structure provides clients with the self-knowledge and confidence they need to decide whether and what decision to make,” she says.
Providing structure for journaling has been at the centre of psychotherapist Kathleen Adams’ work for 30 years.
The Denver-based Center for Journal Therapy director recognized early on the need to provide journal writers with structure when she observed grieving or traumatized clients having difficulty writing about their pain.
She noted how most tended to work in an unstructured, boundless, “free writing” way that she says, “parallels the process of catastrophic grief, which is in itself oceanic, endless and formless.”
She adapted 18 journal-writing techniques that provide structure, pacing and boundaries to support clients overwhelmed when writing about trauma.
Eason signed on for an Adams’ method workshop recently which, she says, took her journaling to a new level.
“The techniques offered a better way to get things out and I was surprised by how creative I could be telling my story.”
Breast cancer survivor Dorothy Mackintosh attributes much of her emotional and physical recovery to art journaling. The 48-year-old mother of three had only moved to Canada from Australia six weeks before she was diagnosed in 2007.
After a mastectomy, reconstructive surgery, nine rounds of chemotherapy and five-and-a-half weeks of radiation at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, she decided to try journaling.
“It opened my mind, gave me balance, helped me discover my selfworth and heal,” she says.