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The Potential for Writing To Facilitate Catharsis For years, therapists have prescribed writing therapy to patients suffering mental anguish as a tool for expression
Submitted by lotus11 on March 29, 2008
Category: Psychology
Words: 2554 | Pages: 11
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For years, therapists have prescribed writing therapy to patients suffering mental anguish as a tool for expression of feelings, and a way to unburden the mind. There have been several studies published which prove the benefits of writing for therapeutic purposes. The goal of writing therapy is to provide a catharsis for people, and the evidence shows that this is precisely what takes place. Writing has the potential to facilitate growth of opinions and beliefs (Elbow, 1985). The purpose of this essay is to explore the ways in which writing provides a catharsis for people, and the profound effects that writing can have on ones mental well-being. The benefits of writing for helping to heal emotional trauma, for the elderly, and for people with sleep disorders will be discussed further.
James Pennebaker (1990), as cited by Moran (2004), pioneered the study of the healing effects of writing. In the early 1980s, Pennebaker conducted a study in which four groups of students were asked to write for fifteen minutes a day, for four days consecutively (Moran, 2004). The control group was asked to write about a topic that was trivial (Moran, 2004). The other three groups were asked to write about personal, traumatic events that had taken place in their lives (Moran, 2004). One of these groups was asked to only describe their emotions about the event, not to narrate the facts; another group was asked to describe just the facts of the experience, not their emotions; and finally, the third group was asked to narrate the facts as well as to describe their emotions (Moran, 2004).
The results of the study suggested that there was both a psychological and a physiological benefit to writing therapy (Moran, 2004). Four months after the study, the students in the group that were asked to write down both feelings and facts about the traumatic event reported feeling more positive, and happier than they felt before the experiment (Moran, 2004). There was also a...
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