Writing as Therapy Have You

Writing as Therapy

Have you ever written anything to express your inner thoughts? May be you are keeping a journal of daily activities or simply writing short stories because you enjoy spinning new stories. If yes, have you ever noticed how the writing process works and how it affects you? May be not because too many of us would simply want to get over with writing or may even write without thinking it could do anything to us. But according to Peggy Penn, writing is highly therapeutic and once I became aware of that, I realized this was a true assessment of the writing process.

I believe that writing is highly therapeutic because it helps a person construct a dialogue with himself and then help him sort out his problems. It unties some knots in the mind that help put issues and problems into perspective and also help us seek our own solutions through the process of writing.

It is exactly like conversing with oneself, only it is a more acceptable way of communicating with self. All of us talk to ourselves because that's the best way to understand what is bothering us, how it can be solved, how the situation can be handled in a better manner next time and how it can all be given meaning. However some people may not find the time or inclination to indulge in serious reflection and communication with themselves and some may find the idea rather absurd. For this reason, writing offers a good alternative way of constructing meaningful dialogue with one's self.

Peggy Penn based her work on the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin who believed that authors communicate with themselves when writing and an outer and inner voice appears. It is known to all those who regularly engage in writing exercises that it can be especially useful in understanding one's self and putting our lives and dreams into perspective. It also can be viewed as a chronicle of transformation as Penn writes, "… they (the clients) write to others and to themselves in the form of journals, notes, letters, records of dreams, poetry etc. We understand their writing as an artifact of their own change as well as representation of the therapeutic union." ("A letter to David Epston," p.97

In the process of communicating our ideas through writing, we are more than one person. Another person appears who helps us build the dialogue. He may challenges our long-held views, appreciate some of them, improve on others and contradicts or rejects yet some others completely. Penn and other therapists might use writing with their clients as a way of weaving in a new story and the same can be done by any person engaging in writing.