Keeping a Journal

vince1980

I've being keeping a journal for maybe the last 5 years. I write in it everyday. So of course they have many interesting stories and treasured memories. Also the good, the bad and the ugly of life. I always find it relaxing while writing. As if im talking to a friend.

Im the type of guy who keeps issues to himself. For the fact I dont want anyone worrying about me. Im pretty deep so i tend to analyse everything.

Is keeping a personal journal good for the mind ? Do you ever get worried in case anyone finds the journals ?

Thanks

Vincent:)

hotspur

Keeping a journal is recommended (in fact often a requirement) in a lot of psychotherapy training courses.

Also there are specific interventions that involve using a journal such as the positive psychology intervention of a gratitude journal in which each night you write down 3 things that you are grateful for that day.

I know that there is good research that a gratitude journal helps. I am not familiar with any research on journalling in general.

vince1980

thanks for the reply!
So is it best to just write as positive as you can. What about if your going through a breakup or u had a pretty bad day ?

krankykitty

As Hotspur says a journal is often a requirement of therapy training courses and also can be used as part of the therapy if the client wishes.

About what you were saying about writing down positives - I think it's often hard to write down positives when you're feeling down. But on the good days, taking down notes of good things/things you enjoy in your life (even very simple things), or notes about difficult situations and how you dealt with them can be good to read back over when you're having a bad day. You know how sometimes when things feel really bad, you can't remember a time when life was good. Well, in your previously written journal will be the evidence to the contrary, evidence that there was a time when things were good. In terms of a breakup, perhaps journalling in the form of a letter (that need not be sent) to the other person may be beneficial in helping to clarify feelings etc.

This is probably veering away from Psychology and we'll probably be sent to PI though if you have a look on the web you might find some articles or books about ways to use journaling.

hotspur

vince1980 wrote: »

thanks for the reply!
So is it best to just write as positive as you can. What about if your going through a breakup or u had a pretty bad day ?

Well, the mechanism of action with writing positive observations / interpretations is to help to orientate you towards naturally viewing things in a more optimistic / positive light. Logically that same focused attention when writing bad things should help to orientate you towards pessimistic / negatives perspectives.

But if you are already dwelling and ruminating on something negative then transducting the information from thoughts to written words might help to break the ruminative pattern. Perhaps writing it can put it into a context which can then be filed away. And I mean that literally too. Research shows that if you write down something troubling you, put it in an envelope, and then seal the envelope then you will feel better:
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=sealing%20the%20emotions%20genie%3A%20the%20effects%20of%20physical%20enclosure%20on%20psychological%20closure.%20&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rotman.utoronto.ca%2Fnewthinking%2Ftroubles.pdf&ei=iY7JTv28OInOhAf2u_nNDw&usg=AFQjCNGihTXvVVZuQJV-8Gi4qCZPEd8E4w&cad=rja

Writing something down in an exploratory way can also help facilitate connecting with it emotionally so that the emotion can be processed rather than weighing you down.

I spent the weekend at an excellent expressive arts therapy workshop where a single piece of information / issue was represented in movement, painting, performance, poetry etc. It seems to be quite a freeing experience to represent and experience expressing something through a variety of media.

So journalling in general seems like it has the potential to be somewhat liberating.