How Writing Heals the Soul

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Expressive writing is not a benign act of recounting the day’s events but a transformative tool for meaning-making. It gifts the opportunity to rewrite our lives’ narratives, repositioning ourselves as chief-in-charge. It’s an invitation to stand inside what writer, speaker, and activist Parker Palmer (2009) refers to as the “tragic gap,” or the space that exists between reality and possibility.

What is Expressive Writing?

James Pennebaker (1997), social psychologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, pioneered the research on expressive writing, asking individuals to write about a stressful or traumatic event, standing in the “tragic gap,” searching for a life rope to venture into a healthier space and place. Originally, Pennebaker and colleagues recruited college students to the lab and randomly assigned them to either write about a troubling experience or an innocuous topic, such as chronicling last week’s activities, under the guise of reflecting upon their time management skills. In both the experimental and control conditions, the participants wrote anonymously. Initially, the researchers hypothesized that self-disclosure on the page, making the internal external, would bring about positive health consequences (Pennebaker & Evans, 2014; Pennebaker & Smith, 2016).

However, though some of these earlier assumptions were likely true, the real power appeared to be in the act of writing itself, not in the disclosure. Although some participants in the experimental group felt worse immediately following the writing, over time, they had healthier outcomes than the control group, as measured by the frequency of visits to the student health center. In addition, amongst the experimental group, students who routinely submitted sloppy work for class eloquently constructed thought-provoking narratives, clearly valuing their story.

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Follow-up studies conducted by a wide range of researchers replicated the results while vastly expanding the population to include war veterans, healthcare workers, cancer survivors, chronic pain sufferers, crime victims, first responders, new mothers, caregivers, the recently unemployed, and the incarcerated. Moreover, the duration of the time spent writing and the number of writing sessions appeared to not significantly alter the health benefits. Across studies, participants wrote anywhere from two to 15 minutes in consecutive sessions spanning just minutes apart to weeks in between (Baddeley & Pennebaker, 2011; Kartikaningsih et al., 2023; Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016; Procaccia et al., 2021; Sexton et al., 2009; Vieira, 2019; Wu, et al., 2021).

Interestingly, follow-up studies indicate that it is not even necessary to reflect upon your own life circumstances. For example, participants who wrote in response to narratives documenting other people's difficult life experiences still showed health benefits (Nazarian & Smyth, 2013). Though not definitively known, one explanation is that expressive writing invites people to hone their emotional granularity and processing skills, which can later be applied to their own unique struggles. In addition, reading about others' pain may diminish feelings of self-isolation as participants come to see hardship as part of the universal human condition.

Try Expressive Writing Out

Now, if you are interested in giving expressive writing a whirl, there is no special equipment or costly time commitment required. Though you may prefer typing, handwriting is the way to go, for it is slightly more laborious, making the writer work at a slower pace that supports deeper thinking. The length and frequency of what you write is a personal preference, but writing for 15 minutes for three consecutive days is a manageable starting point. It is important to note that positive health outcomes have been shown both for those who write about the same topic on each consecutive day, as well as for those who switch topics with each session. In addition, whereas simply recounting a stressful or traumatic event will likely show positive benefits, there are other, more nuanced approaches worth trying.

For example, Pennebaker and Smythe (2016) suggest writing with an eye to the thoughts and feelings surrounding the event, attempting to excavate meaning from the experience instead of simply chronicling the unfolding. Remember, often, sense-making does not immediately bubble up, and several iterations are required to garner clarity. Another strategy is to write about the event from multiple perspectives, starting with the first person, using the pronouns I and we; then retelling the story in the second person, as if you are telling the story from the perspective of the person in the mirror using the pronoun you; and finally experimenting with the third person, taking on the voice of an outsider, using pronouns such as she, he, or they (Seih et al., 2011).

Another approach, difficult but rewarding, is to write in an attempt to garner a lesson you will carry forth, inquiring, “I didn’t ask for it, deserve it, or want it, but now that it has happened, what insights can I pull?” Lastly, once you have tried out some of the strategies above, zoom out and fast-forward, writing about the stressful or traumatic experience from the vantage point of your best and healthiest future self, providing you with a road map for your evolution.

Finally, in the wise words of Parker Palmer (2024) in his book Let Your Life Speak: Listening For The Voice Of Vocation, “Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”