Writing to Heal by James W Pennebaker PhD

Writing to Heal: A Guided Journal for Recovering from Trauma & Emotional Upheaval by James W Pennebaker, PhD, is applied theory. In his book Opening Up Pennebaker explains how he came to research the effectiveness of expressive writing in helping people to heal from trauma, whether something in the past or more recent. The studies he describes in the first book are reiterated in this guided journal with each section of blank pages preceded with explanations of why he is presenting these exercises and how they should be completed.

For readers who prefer application to principle or who, after reading Opening Up, are wondering how and where to begin, this guided journal, Writing to Heal, is an invaluable resource. The first exercises are the same as those presented in Opening Up—write for twenty minutes about an emotionally charged experience of your choice. Write only for twenty minutes. The chapters that follow return to the these initial exercises, having the reader/writer look at how they chose to write about the experience not only in what word choices they made but also in how the handwriting may have changed from one day to the next.

Writing to Heal, however, takes the suggested writing practices from Opening Up a step further and invites the reader/writer to take the foundation of writing in a more journalistic manner and shift into a more creative mode. Rather than write from merely the personal perspective, the reader/writer is encouraged to write from another point of view, writing about the same experience from the first person and again in the third person voice. These subtle shifts from a subjective voice to an objective voice affords the reader/writer an opportunity to make new discoveries, like seeing the same view from a different perspective. This naturally progresses to the final chapter’s suggestion that the writer/reader consider writing a poem or even a short story about the traumatic experience.

Throughout, Pennebaker supports and encourages the reader/writer but with caution. Never is the reader/writer pushed to write about something that is too emotionally charged. Rather, Pennebaker reminds the reader/writer to get professional help if there is a need to do so. For anyone who found Opening Up interesting but impractical, this book is the impractical put into practice, taking the theoretical and breaking it down into useful exercises.