What Is Therapeutic Writing? Exercises to Get Started

What therapeutic writing is

Therapeutic writing is taking something that got to you and writing about it until you understand why it hit you so hard. It might be an argument that keeps you up at night, a decision you regret or a loss you still don't know how to handle.

It started in psychology: in 1986, James Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas, published the first expressive writing study, which opened up a line of research on what happens when you put what hurts into words.

It has nothing to do with talent or with writing well. No one is going to read what you write, so typos, unfinished sentences and repetition don't matter. The only thing that matters is getting what you really think onto the page.

Imagine your dad has been making comments about your job at every family dinner for years, and the latest one stung. Just recounting it looks like this: "Dad took another dig at my job." Writing to understand it looks like this: "He did it again, and I felt angry, but under the anger I was sad, because I've felt for a long time that I'll never be good enough for him and I don't know how to tell him."

In the second version, what really hurts is now on the page, and from there you can start to do something about it.

How it differs from journaling and from therapy

Journaling is the habit of writing to understand yourself, with or without a hard topic: it can be a gratitude entry or whatever is on your mind. Therapeutic writing focuses on one specific thing that has shaken you and keeps coming back to it until you understand it.

You may have heard it called "writing therapy," "writing for healing" or "writing as therapy," but those are figures of speech: writing can go hand in hand with therapy, even between sessions, without replacing it.

The core exercise: expressive writing step by step

The most studied form is Pennebaker's expressive writing, and this is how it works:

• Pick a topic that upsets you. Something that has affected you and that you keep turning over in your head. Just make sure it is something you can write about without falling apart.
• Set aside time without interruptions. Block out 20 minutes, silence your notifications and find a spot where no one will walk in on you.
• Write for 15 to 20 minutes straight. That is how long the sessions last in the studies.
• Repeat for three or four days in a row. On the same topic or on different sides of it.
• Write what you think and what you feel. Don't fix typos or polish your style. If you get stuck, repeat the last sentence you wrote and keep going.
• When you're done, decide what to do with it. Keep it to reread in a few months or throw it away. If you decide to toss it before you start, you'll write more freely, with no one to read it.

It is normal to come away a bit stirred up right after writing. Going back to something painful is uncomfortable for a while, and that dip doesn't mean it isn't working. In a review of studies with healthy people, writing about their own emotions helped: participants reported better health and mood and did better in their daily lives, and the early distress was unrelated to how much they improved.

One topic, four days of writing

Here is a shortened version of four days writing about the same thing. Say you got laid off a month ago.

Day 1:

I got laid off a month ago and I'm still angry. They broke the news with zero tact, in a 15-minute meeting, and then I had to pack up my desk in front of everyone. Everybody saw. Just thinking about it makes me furious, and I can't focus on anything else.

Day 2:

Writing about it, I realized that under the anger there's fear of running out of money: I have enough for a few months and I haven't slept right since. And fear of what people will think. I told my parents I decided to leave, and that's not true.

Day 3:

What hurts most is something else. That job was where I felt like I was good at something. It took me two years to earn my place, and in 15 minutes it was over. That's why I keep it to myself: if I tell people what really happened, I have to admit they let me go and nobody stood up for me.

Day 4:

I think what hurts is losing what the job meant to me, not the job itself, and I can look for that somewhere else. I wrote down three things I know I'm good at and texted a former co-worker who works somewhere else now to ask if she wants to grab coffee. That's it for today, but it's something.

On day 1 there is only venting: the anger, the unfairness and the moment of being let go. On day 2 the fear underneath shows up. On day 3, the reason it hurts so much.

And day 4 doesn't fix everything at once, but it ends with something figured out and a small first step.

Pennebaker saw something similar when he analyzed what people wrote about what had happened to them: those whose health improved most used "because" and "I realize" more and more from one day to the next. That is the shift between day 1 and day 4: from recounting the facts to understanding why it hurts.

What research says about therapeutic writing

In people with a mood disorder, writing about something difficult helped no more than writing about anything else. An online trial had participants with that diagnosis write for 20 minutes on four occasions, and those who did expressive writing improved just as much as those who wrote about a neutral topic, like time management.

If you have a diagnosed mental health condition, what drives your recovery is treatment, and writing can sit alongside it: between sessions and on hard days. In people without a diagnosis who are going through something difficult, there is evidence of improved well-being, and that is where it fits.

More therapeutic writing exercises

Expressive writing has the longest track record, but there are other exercises you can use depending on what you need at the time.

The unsent letter

Write a letter to someone you have unfinished business with: something you never told them, something they did to you or something they can no longer hear because they are gone. Write what you'd say to them without editing yourself. This letter has only one rule: you never send it.

Knowing it won't be sent is what lets you write without a filter. You aren't choosing your words to get a certain reaction from the other person, because there won't be one: you are writing only for yourself. It helps when you keep replaying a conversation you never had, or when there is no longer any way to have it.

Writing about yourself in the third person

Write about what's happening to you using your own name, or "he" or "she," in place of "I." So instead of "I don't know if I can get through Friday's meeting," you write "Sarah doesn't know if she can get through Friday's meeting."

It sounds like a gimmick, but there is evidence behind it: in a set of seven studies with 585 people, referring to yourself by your own name or without "I" while thinking about a socially stressful situation, like public speaking or making a good impression, created more distance from what was going on. People who did it felt less distress, handled the situation better according to outside observers and dwelled on it less afterward.

The research was about how you talk to yourself while reflecting, not about writing, but the idea of stepping back carries over to the page. You see what is happening to you the way someone else would. If writing in the first person only lets you vent and you aren't getting anywhere, try it this way: looking at the situation from the outside is one of the ways to manage your emotions.

What a hard experience taught you

Go back to a tough experience with a different question: what did you learn from it, or what did you find out about yourself? It might be something learned the hard way ("I can handle an uncomfortable conversation") or something you discovered about what matters to you.

It works well once you have already written about the topic, gotten it off your chest and want to take something away from it. If you can't find anything, don't force it: it may still be too soon for that question.

Your best possible self

Imagine and write down what your life would look like a few years from now if things went reasonably well and you'd put in the work to get there. In detail: where you're working, who you're with and what your days look like.

This one is backed by research too: a meta-analysis of 29 studies with about 2,900 people found that this exercise improved well-being, optimism and positive mood compared with control groups. It is a good option when you have spent a while focused on what is going wrong and find it hard to picture what comes next, for example when closing one chapter of your life or starting another.

When to wait or get help

There are times when writing isn't the best first step.

If what happened is very recent or very serious, you may not be able to write about it yet without falling apart, and it is better to wait. Or lean on someone you trust, or on a professional, first.

With grief, the studies give an uncomfortable answer: in people who had just lost their spouse, expressive writing did not reduce distress, either right after or six months later. In bereaved people with high distress, an online writing program reduced loneliness and improved mood, but it hasn't been shown to ease grief itself. Writing can keep you company through grief, but it shouldn't be your only support: lean on the people around you too.

And one rule for any exercise: if you end up worse every time you write and don't bounce back from one session to the next, stop and ask a mental health professional for help. Writing doesn't have to be an endurance test.

How to keep writing after the exercise

The four days are designed for one specific topic. To keep writing from being a one-off, a therapy journal app gives you a place to come back to whenever something upsets you, so you can write it down and make sense of it.

So you don't have to face a blank page every time, MindLogs walks you through seven steps to write about what happened, points out the thinking trap that may be behind it and suggests another way to see it. You can type or dictate, and your entries are encrypted on your own phone.

Between exercises, an emotional journal lets you jot down what upset you that day in two or three lines. When you reread it, you can see which topics keep coming back and which one deserves the four days of expressive writing.

Conclusion

Therapeutic writing is writing about what hurts until you understand it, and all you need is a quiet stretch of time and a few pages. This week, try writing for 15 to 20 minutes about something that has been bothering you lately, and repeat it three or four days in a row.

You're on the right track if your pages follow the same arc as the layoff example: from venting on day 1 to "why does this hurt so much?" on day 3, and from there to a small first step.

Writing this way is a tool for getting to know yourself, not a treatment. If what you feel keeps overwhelming you, put the notebook down and talk to a mental health professional.

Frequently asked questions

What therapeutic writing exercises can I try?

The main ones are expressive writing (writing for 15 to 20 minutes over several days in a row about something that upsets you), the unsent letter to someone you have unfinished business with, writing about yourself in the third person, writing about what a hard experience taught you and describing your best possible self a few years from now. You can do all of them on paper or on your phone.

Is it better to write by hand or on a computer or phone?

No format beats the others. What matters is that you can write without interruptions and know that no one is going to read it. Pick whichever one is closest at hand when you need it.

How long should I write?

The classic expressive writing format is 15 to 20 minutes a session, three or four days in a row. You don't need to do it every day forever: it is a one-off exercise for a specific topic, and you can repeat it when something else comes up that upsets you.

What if I feel worse after writing?

It is common to feel a bit stirred up right after writing, and in the studies that early distress was unrelated to the results: it doesn't predict how you will do. But if you sink lower every time you write and don't bounce back from one session to the next, stop and talk to a mental health professional.

Does therapeutic writing help with grief?

In people who had just lost their spouse, writing about the loss did not reduce the distress of grief. In bereaved people who were still very distressed, an online writing program did reduce loneliness and improve mood, although it didn't change the grief itself either. Writing can keep you company through grief, but it doesn't replace support from other people or from a professional if grief gets complicated.