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The results were remarkable, even hard to believe. James Pennebaker assigned half of a group of students to write about a traumatic event that had happened to them and half to write on a neutral topic - in this case, time management during the semester. It was a brief writing exercise of only an hour, spread out over a few days. Months later, the students who had written about a traumatic event not only reported better psychological health, but had also had fewer visits to the student health center!
A fluke? No—the positive effects of brief expressive writing on psychological and physical health have now been shown in dozens of studies. It was Laura King and her student Chad Burton who pushed the exercise to the limits, having students only write for 2 minutes at a time on 2 consecutive days. They also found beneficial effects, even for this remarkably short period of time.
Most expressive writing programs still instruct people to write about the "most traumatic" thing that ever happened to them, or some other bad event. However, we are starting to understand more about what kinds of writing are helpful.
It is probably not that surprising that writing about a bad event is more helpful than writing about study skills. My husband calls this "Grandma psychology"—the sort of thing that if you explained it to your Grandma, she'd say something like, "And? Anyone could have told you that." However, it was a revelation that such a short intervention could be so helpful. Especially back in the 1990s, when psychologists were still getting used to the idea that not everyone needed long-term psychotherapy.
Researchers think that expressive writing, also called narrative writing, helps because it helps you process the event. By organizing your thoughts and feelings about something and putting it into words, you can help gain some sense of perspective, sort out and process your emotions, and increase something called "narrative coherence" which helps us all understand who we are and how we became the person we are today.
We have started to realize that there are probably a lot of ways to get those benefits. Rosenberg and colleagues conducted a study with cancer patients and they assumed that the cancer diagnosis would be the most troubling thing in their lives and told people to write about that. However, a lot of the people ignored those instructions and wrote about something else instead. Just because someone has cancer doesn't mean that that is more important than children or family or other concerns. The people who wrote about something else got the same benefits as the folks who did write about their diagnosis.
We found that one good alternative to writing about the "most traumatic" thing that ever happened to you is to write about the development of your personal values. The Laws of Life Essay is one program that takes this approach.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
The ultimate measure of a [person] is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
It turns out that many people asked to write about their most important values will write a story about a tough time in their lives, or in their families' lives, and how that led them to recognize what is most important to them.
What's more, this approach also works well for people who have not had a major traumatic event, as long as they still write about something that is personally meaningful and connected to their lives and their important relationships.
Our newest work suggests a few other tips to get the most out of expressive writing:
1) Very short writing times are still helpful, but something around 2 or 3 hours appears to be most beneficial.
On the other hand, there were some hints in the Life Paths study that too much "navel-gazing" may not be as beneficial for many people. In the Laws of Life Essay, benefits started to drop off for folks who worked 5 or more hours on it and there were a few outcomes that looked worse for people who focused too much on their inner life through keeping a diary, etc. Yes, processing through expressive writing is good and important and will boost your immune system along with other numerous benefits. However, at some point it is good to get outside yourself and find meaning in the world.
2) If you have an encouraging person in your life, let them give you feedback. It doesn't seem to much matter whether it is a teacher, therapist, minister, friend, or family member, any safe person is good.
If you do not have an encouraging person in your life, seeking help from a therapist or other advisor is worth considering.
3) Don't worry about spelling, grammar, or punctuation—those are not important for the psychological benefits, and can be fixed later if you want.
4) Share your completed narrative, perhaps even with those who might get helped from hearing your story. Sharing with others added a lot to the benefits in our study.
5) Make sure your writing is grounded in your life. Abstract principles are fine, but writing about them won't help you any more than writing about study skills will.
6) Focus on post-traumatic growth. Post-traumatic growth is, basically, a fancy psychological term for the idea that every cloud has a silver lining. Bad things are still bad things—it is actually quite harmful to try to convince yourself that something traumatic was not really bad—but that doesn't mean we cannot take something positive from them. Sometimes it is increased empathy for other people who have faced tough times, sometimes it is realizing that you have inner strength you did not know you had, sometimes it can make you realize what your own true priorities are.
Perhaps the real miracle of expressive writing is that the power to heal lies within you.
Learn more about the Laws of Life Essay and resilience at http://lifepathsresearch.org. The Life Paths research described here was conducted by Sherry Hamby, Elizabeth Taylor, John Grych, and Victoria Banyard.
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.
© Sherry Hamby 2015.
