When a client comes to work with me one of the first things I ask of them is to write down feelings, thoughts and dreams. The reason is not just to create a text for reflection and discussion, but to develop the process of learning to witness their unconscious processes. It’s a practice I’ve been engage in for practically all of my adult life and I can attest to actual changes in my approach to living.
What happens with such witnessing is that the waves of emotion no longer have a big grip on daily life. I began the process decades ago because I realized that if I allowed those massive deluges of emotions to dominate my life, I probably wouldn’t survive. I understood that it really was critical for me to find a way to live moderately, with awareness. And so, I started writing. This writing has evolved into many variations on the original theme, from self observation to others. It now incorporates my professional and academic insights. The insights have become outsights (if I may call this article one of these).
Writing, as therapeutic tool, is much used by psychodynamic practitioners like myself in various ways. The psychodynamic approach suggests that human behaviour is generated by unconscious processes and that the therapeutic purpose is to bring such unconscious things into conscious awareness for fundamental change in everyday life.
The process of writing does not include interpretation, though these may be suggested in the psychotherapeutic session itself by both client and therapist. It merely records whatever the clients wants to bring up. The text may be accompanied by drawings, if the client wishes.
Till recently, I just intuited tangible shifts in awareness in myself and my clients but now I’ve discovered that neurological brain research has found that this has a measurable aspect as well. Brain imaging studies show the writing down one’s feelings changes how the brain works. The emotional circuits of the brain (the amygdala) show reduced activity. The amygdala lies deep within the temporal lobes, and is an essential part of the limbic system. It is primarily responsible for processing emotions, particularly fear, anxiety, and aggression and attaches emotional value to memories. It also triggers fight-or-flight responses. What happens when you write your feelings down, instead of being overwhelmed by such feelings – as these brain studies have shown – there is reduced amygdala activity along with an increased engagement of the prefrontal cortex.
The prefrontal cortext supports planning, reasoning, and self-regulation. Simply put, writing things down reduces the welling up of emotions to being able to manage life more effectively. Your thoughts are structured and externalized into written form and thus they lose much of their grip, thus cutting down feelings of stress. You can step back and observe your interactions and behaviours and thus proceed in emotional safety without being swept up in realms you can’t manage.
There is an added benefit to the process of writing: you end up with a record of your therapeutic journey which, in itself, can be used to develop other possibilities for your own life. Maybe the writings can become a memoir, a novel, a series of poems, theoretical discoveries, whatever. I’ve had clients utilize their writings in the form of all these things, which delights me. And of course, the very activity of the writing process itself is therapy, and a very valuable and wonderfully self clarifying one.
