Reasons To Write Things Down

The Benefits Of Writing Things Down by Jane Thurnell-Read

Many practitioners ask clients to write things down as part of the therapeutic process. They know that clients benefit from relieving some of their stress and pent-up emotions through writing. Here’s a scientific study which shows measurable physical benefits from this activity.

It was in the well-respected British Medical Journal in September 2003, but I only recently came across it.

Suzanne Scott and colleagues from the Unit of Psychology, King’s College London, asked 36 people to write - half were asked to write about an emotional event in their lives, preferably one they had not talked about before, and the other half were asked to write on something more trivial, avoiding emotional language. They did this three times for 20 minutes each time over a week.

In the second week all the participants received an identical wound in the upper arm. The results showed that after 14 days the participants who had written about the traumatic events had significantly smaller wounds than the other group.

A few months ago I wrote an article for our sister web site for the general public on the benefits of writing.