Writing to Heal: A Guided Journal for Recovering from Trauma and Emotional Upheaval

For the first time, a leading authority on expressive emotions therapy (EET) translates these powerful techniques for emotional healing into a book accessible to general readers. Through guided journal writing exercises, this book helps readers translate their traumatic, emotionally disturbing experiences into powerful writing that is clinically proven to promote recovery.

Clinical trials indicate that writing about painful experiences can enhance immune response, reduce recovery times, and promote physical, psychological, and social well-being. This book is the first guided journal written by the preeminent psychologist working in the field of expressive emotions therapy: a step-by-step guide to emotionally expressive writing.

What do diarists and journal writers know that can help anyone dealing with a traumatic or emotionally challenging situation recover from pain and regain their peace of mind? They know that the act of putting thoughts and feelings on paper is, itself, a powerful exercise that makes them feel heard and acknowledged--a way of regaining perspective and control over the events that move through their lives.

In this book, the preeminent psychologist and researcher in the growing field of EET, takes you through a series of guided writing exercises that help you explore your feelings about difficult experiences. Each chapter begins with an introduction that explains how to proceed with the journal exercise and what it is structured to help accomplish. The book encourages you to do the exercise in the journal itself--each chapter provides plenty of ruled space--so that you can frequently refer to your own work and gain insight and clarity from your own words. The text offers encouragement and gentle advice for breaking through those inevitable moments when mental blocks make writing impossible; stream-of-consciousness and automatic writing clears away the obstacle and inspires you to even deeper levels of self-expression. The text stresses, throughout, the power for understanding and coping with difficult times that lies in storytelling, whether through fiction, dance, or art. In all, the exercises will leave you with a strong sense of your value in the world and the ability to accept that which is sometimes hard to accept--that life can be good even when it is sometimes bad.