Writing Your Way Out of the Worst: How Does Writing Help?
Relief from stress, anxiety, depression; improved immunity and overall physical health; fewer doctor visits; progress in treatment; insight and self-awareness; a more powerful memory… and more. Expressive writing—a phenomenon we explored in the previous article —deserves a great deal of scientifically substantiated praise. Although the origins of research into writing as a therapeutic method do not go back very far (the late 1980s), the first known mention of the benefits of this technique dates back several centuries back; and it may be reasonable to suspect that the therapeutic potential of self-expression has captivated humanity from the very beginning. How is it possible that confiding one’s darkest secrets and problems to a piece of paper yields so many positive side effects?
“Most psychologists”, write Pennebaker, “agrees that talking about distressing experiences is psychologically beneficial. But that is where their agreement ends.“ Indeed, as is often the case in psychology, there are several theories as to why expressive writing helps.
The first of these is psychoanalysis-inspired emotional catharsis. At the very beginning of psychotherapy as we know it today was “talk therapy”: through hypnosis and conversation, doctors Breuer and Freud helped their patients release pent-up emotions. This “conscious expression of long-suppressed emotions” proved helpful in treating mental disorders. And what else is therapeutic writing but giving vent to the negative emotions that a person has held inside for far too long?... Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. For expressive writing to be helpful, it must not be merely “venting”—a haphazard spilling of frightening or negative feelings onto paper; studies have shown how important it is to focus in your writing not only on emotions but also on describing the actual event that these feelings accompany. Let’s also remember short-term mood deterioration, which occurs in most participants immediately after writing… Next, please!
The theory of emotional inhibition is based on a similar premise as the catharsis described above: the effort to avoid thinking about the trauma is burdensome, increases stress and physiological activity; the difficulty of suppressing thoughts about a traumatic event is also associated with “obsessive thinking or rumination about the event and chronic illness”. Confronting suppressed thoughts and transforming them into words and stories allows us to gain perspective and finally break free from the vicious cycle of unhelpful thought patterns. Sharing what has been suppressed until now allows us to let go of the burden of stress, break down the barriers of accumulated ‘forbidden’ emotions, and thereby take a huge step toward better health. This effect has indeed been observed at the biological level in many people—as Baike and Wilhelm write, “studies have shown that expressive writing leads to significant improvements in various biochemical markers of bodily and immune functions”. Although it appears that the emotional disinhibition induced by writing contributes to the improvement to some extent, it alone is not a sufficient explanation for the observed changes.
Another possible interpretation is exposure theory. For example, so-called exposure therapy is based on the principle of confronting the trauma experienced (prolonged exposure therapy), one of the treatment options for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The understandable desire to avoid thinking about the trauma and to steer clear of anything that might trigger horrific memories actually reinforces fear and the symptoms of PTSD. Exposure therapy helps patients cope with the trauma by “exposing” themselves to these memories —the fear they cause gradually subsides thanks to mechanisms of habituation and extinction (extinction). Various studies describe that “Reliving a traumatic experience in a safe, supportive environment helps a person process and come to terms with that experience“; the reduction in stress and improvement in health induced by expressive writing is thus quite possibly a result of exposing oneself to topics that we otherwise tend to avoid.
Thanks to technological advances, research on expressive writing did not have to remain limited to simply assigning tasks and observing the results: linguistic analysis of texts produced as part of the experiments added another piece to the slowly growing puzzle. Fascinating findings from the linguistic analysis of the texts became the breeding ground for the theory of cognitive processing. The more linguistic elements related to processes of thinking, insight, or self-reflection appeared in the text—expressions such as cause, effect, reason and verbs such as understand, realize, know), the more dramatic the improvement in physical health that participants observed as a result of expressive writing. Pennebaker describes this “cognitive word effect” as “in line with our expectations”—namely, the assumption that writing “helps people understand their experiences”. Creating a narrative about a given experience, reflecting on its consequences, organizing one’s thoughts, and processing them are “the main mechanism of expressive writing”.
And these are just some of the possible explanations. It is not yet entirely clear which theory will ultimately prevail in light of scientific progress. What’s important, however, is that research continues and expressive writing is receiving the attention it undoubtedly deserves. One thing is certain—sharing = the path to healing. So let’s write, let’s talk; there’s no reason to suffer alone.
