Therapeutic Journalling Tips

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” — William Wordsworth

Therapeutic Journalling is a process of writing down thoughts and feelings about your personal experiences. Journals can help in finding a narrative, a way of making sense of an experience.  It provides a space for private reflection and prompts to improve your mental health.  A journal doesn’t have to be just words, it can be drawing or doodling or creating a scrapbook of cut outs or photographs. There are no ‘rules’ when journalling, no right or wrong ways of doing it, whatever you choose to do or write about will be right for you. Journalling is a space where you can get to know yourself on a much deeper level.

A journal is available at any time you need, you never need to wait or rely on others. It doesn’t matter how often you do it, you could choose a time each day or it may be something you do once a month.

Write as far as possible with no planning or forethought – allow your pen to do the thinking for you. Do not worry about spelling or grammar, it is the words that you are writing that matter, not how they are spelt. Knowing where to start or how to begin may feel difficult, so here are some ideas to try if you need a little help.

• You could choose a word, a line or a phrase that you may have heard someone say, or perhaps a lyric from a song. It could be something that you have read from a book or a poem, e.g. I remember… You’re everything… I found… It’s like…

• Free writing/stream of conscious writing – Write down all your thoughts without stopping for an allocated period  of time (10-20 minutes) as they come into your head.

• Letter writing – This could be a letter to yourself (younger/present/older) or to someone else, whether that be someone that you know or perhaps don’t know, like a role model. It could also be about writing to someone who is no longer living, thinking about things that perhaps you didn’t get to say whilst they were still alive.

• Scrapbooking – Cutting out words and images from magazines, newspapers or photographs that appeal to you. Arranging them so they form some sort of story which resonates to you.

• Stepping Stones  –  Think about a list of topics that may be meaningful to you, such as places you’ve been on holiday, books you have read, places you have lived, significant people etc. Choose one or two topics from your list.  Then think and list some bullet points for your chosen topic. These are your Stepping Stones. Finally, choose to write about one of the things on your list, using a technique of your choice.

• Create a Zine (short for magazine or fanzie) – Like a small magazine where you write an article(s) about something you are interested in.

• List Writing – This can be as specific/nonspecific as you like.  A simple every day to do list, a five-year goal plan, things you would like to try, a bucket list, things that you don’t want to write about.

• Cathartic Writing/Vomit draft– This is where you just vent, dump and scream onto the page.  This is especially good for when you feel overwhelmed or angry. 

• Dialogue/Sketch – This is where you could write down a conversation.  It might be between parts of yourself that are in conflict, e.g. struggling with addiction or having treatment for an illness. It may be between different people/characters. It could be a dialogue about a certain life event that happened.

• Mind Mapping with an Object – Find an object and create a mind map where you note down anything you can think of or see, that the object brings to mind. Does the object remind you of anything? What does the object want to say?

Give some thought about the contents of your journal, how would you feel if someone found it? Would you prefer to store it in a ‘safe’ space?  How would you feel about burning the paper once you have written on it?  Remember, you do not have to share your journalling with anybody if you don’t want to. 

!Happy Journalling!