Creative Writing and Healing

How does  Writing Promote Healing?

Writing will enhance your immune system.
Writing your story can heal your life.

Aware of the healing energy in my groups, but unable to formulate what I was seeing, I was thrilled several years ago to hear a short blip on NPR:  research proved writing was good for your health.  James W. Pennebaker had compiled evidence that writing, particularly about critical events in one's life, enhances the immune system. In his book Opening Up, he summarizes by saying "Writing about emotional upheavals has been found to improve the physical and mental health of grade-school children and nursing home residents, arthritis sufferers, medical school students, maximum security prisoners, new mothers, and rape victims. Not only are there benefits to health, but writing about emotional topics has been found to reduce anxiety and depression, improve grades, and…aid people in securing new jobs." Writing may also reduce grieving time.

Pennebaker suggests it is the translation of emotions into language that does the trick. Although talking about our traumas also helps, it is harder to talk without someone to listen. In general, we have no such compunction about writing without a reader. In fact, believing no one will read it may make writing easier. To impact the immune system, it doesn't matter whether anyone hears or reads the story, what the trauma was or how long ago. The effect is most measurable, however, when the event hasn't been talked about. Although the research was done on traumatic events, Pennebaker believes, and I agree, writing about daily issues and problems has the same health benefits.

The miraculous connection between writing and the immune system results from cracking through inhibition. It seems that when we don't speak the truth of our experience, we inhibit our emotions, and that inhibits our immune function. Keeping secrets and maintaining denial require physical energy, energy our bodies could use in healthier ways were it available. Not only does inhibition have physiological consequences, it precludes translating our experience into language.  And, it is through language that we organize our experiences into coherent stories making them smaller and easier to deal with. Writing moves us toward understanding and resolution.

The research Pennebaker reports has all been done on conscious, yet unspoken, memories.  What he describes is what many people do in a personal journal or through morning pages as prescribed by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way. I journal to work through current issues, concrete immediate concerns, and record activities and dreams. I empty the garbage, so to speak, so I can get on with my life.

Personal journaling is the work of the conscious mind.  The emotions are engaged, but the mind is busy analyzing, reasoning, and resolving.  Obviously, this emptying out positively impacts our health.

In contrast to journaling, which may not access repressed memories inaccessible to the conscious mind, Writing Practice bypasses the mind and springs from the heart. The heart leads us into the shadows, deep crevices of subconscious memory.  It surprises us, revealing thoughts and emotions we didn't know we had.  Because our conscious mind, our inhibitor, is disengaged, bold truths appear like rabbits from magician's hats. We tap into the well of creativity and truth deep within ourselves. 

As we practice going to the well over and over, we gain self-knowledge, confidence, and acceptance.  We go to the well. We listen to other people's stories. We learn to accept the commonality and diversity of both experience and writing style. Our writing improves. Descriptions become more apt, nouns and verbs grow concrete and precise.  Inside we evolve; yet the growth arises from the writing, not from any effort to change. 

The heart is in charge.  The heart meets us where we are and guides us to the next step, as far and as deep as we are ready to go. The heart is always willing to take a risk in pursuit of love, healing, and truth.  And, we can trust the heart not to push us beyond where we want to go. 

Peggy Tabor Millin
©2004