Dear Diary: Writing Practices as a Way to Understand Yourself
We all document our lives one way or another. through social networks, blogs or even personal diaries. Many have heard about the therapeutic effect of the diary and think that they know how to conduct it correctly in order to squeeze out the maximum benefit from intuitive self-analysis. In fact, with written practices, things are a little more complicated: not all records have a therapeutic effect, not all diary systems can suit a particular person (some can even do harm), and their tasks are also different. To understand how to start keeping a useful diary, what is the difference between different methods and what rules to follow, so as not to harm ourselves, we have prepared a short certificate.
Who and why came up with a diary
Before a person had modern means of communication, writing was his main means of communication - not only with the outside world, but also with himself. The diaries were kept differently and differently: the Japanese maid of honor fixed the inner kitchen of the imperial court, the Quakers felt the sensations of their spiritual explorations, the passengers of the Mayflower - the transatlantic voyage. Through the centuries-old abyss, all these letters are united by a psychological component: regardless of the content of the diary, the projection of the author’s internal state has always been his side property. Depending on how disciplined, eloquent and honest the writer was, his more or less clear portrait appeared. Not only is it interesting to outsiders (in the case of memoirs or biographies), but also useful for deep self-analysis, one of the first to think about was the American social worker and psychotherapist Ira Progoff, who developed an affordable system of therapy and self-help (in well-known limits).
In the 50s of the last century, that is, at the beginning of his career, Progoff decided to build on the ideas of deep psychology and studied the trajectories of its outstanding adherents. Most of all, he was interested in Jung's approach: he, unlike Sigmund Freud, Otto Ranque and Alfred Adler, believed that any client has sufficient resources for self-knowledge and self-help. But Jung insisted on the need for expensive analytical therapy, which not everyone could afford, and the tangible participation of the therapist (according to Progoff, the doctor’s charisma only prevents a person from understanding his own unique system of symbols and reflexes, on whose existence Jung insisted). Progoff's humanistic approach prompted him to seek a spiritual practice that would allow even a poor person to receive psychological help. In addition, it was important for him to take the physician’s figure into the shadows as much as possible, so that during therapy a person would rely on his own resources and be guided by his own assessments.
What is the Progoff method and why is it needed?
Progoff did not find anything like this, so I had to invent my own system. Over the years of practice and teaching, he realized what his personal diaries lack in order not only to smooth out momentary emotions, but also to become the core of the therapy (predecessors considered the diary only an auxiliary tool). According to Progoff, a personal diary is often only a platform for fixing what happened, and not a way of self-knowledge. “When a diary is associated only with a specific goal (searching for a new job for example), it loses its meaning after it has been achieved. You can comfortably experience a specific period with it, but not explore your personality,” the therapist explained. The method of intensive keeping of a structured diary helps to consider a person’s life as a single story, realize his past experience and assess future prospects. In other words, to sort out relationships and work problems, deal with stress and figure out how to live further - after a traumatic situation and in general.
Progoff's method is to regularly keep a diary, thematically divided into four parts (by the way, the notebook should not be crosslinked, but on rings, so that at any time you can add pages where necessary). If you relax well before writing and do not get distracted, it will turn out to fix not only rational reasoning, but also “twilight” observations — that is, those that occur to any person when he is engaged in monotonous activities like running or knitting. Progoff considered "twilight perception" a very important part of therapy, which allows for a more complete picture of the past and the present. In its original form, the method involved the mandatory participation of a qualified facilitator governing group written practices. Facilitators are still being trained in diary therapy centers (The Center of Journal Therapy, Therapeutic Writing Institute for example), but due to the fact that Progoff finally published the “At a Journal Workshop” manual, today everyone can keep a structured diary without to help center. However, in this case, you need to be especially vigilant and monitor your psychological state yourself: it is quite normal to be sad a couple of hours after the letter, but if it becomes worse with each immersion in yourself, you should contact a psychotherapist (this rule is common for any written practice) .
What is the difference between written practices?
Most written practices are directed not at the analysis of a lifetime, but at solving urgent problems. In other words, if your plans do not include disciplined self-knowledge, but you need to sort out emotions or understand why the old trauma stirs the soul, Progoff's method will not work, but you can turn to the ideas of other psychotherapists.
Separate attention deserve okoloterapevticheskie services, offering to write from 280 characters to 750 words per day. In fact, they are no different from the usual personal diary, except for a slightly more complex system of motivation. But 750 words are three pages of text and a large enough volume for the writer to dive too deep into his own experiences. Therapists warn that unstructured, unlimited time and thematically writing is dangerous for the most injured people: they usually cannot recognize the moment when they should stop and no longer plunge into the painful topic. The psychotherapist Kaitlin Adams noticed this and offered some of her clients a simple scheme: as a writing practice, they only had to finish a sentence like "Right now I want ...", "My biggest fear is ...", "Today I feel ...". If the writers had a desire to uncover a thought, Caitlin measured out 5 minutes - just enough, in her opinion, it is enough for the recordings to have a therapeutic effect without compromising the psyche. This rule can be adopted by anyone who wants to gain the habit of keeping a diary, but fears its depressive effect. A diary is not a place for squeezing out anymore and “better”, and even short regular notes will be useful for character analysis.
Does diary replace psychotherapy?
The diary can be both central and auxiliary element of psychotherapy. The usefulness of presenting thoughts on paper (or in a text editor) is unlikely to be denied by at least one psychotherapist, but not everyone will build around his work. In any case, for those who really need the help of a specialist, even the most structured diary will not be enough (but perhaps it will show that something is wrong and encourage you to enroll to a doctor). Ideally, anyone should from time to time turn to psychologists and psychotherapists at least to make sure that everything is fine, but if there is no such possibility, you can try to examine yourself on your own, provided that you comply with all the necessary safety measures.
How to choose a technique and how to harm yourself
As we have said, there are plenty of methods for keeping a diary, you can try everything. The most sensible thing is to search for techniques in the books of psychotherapists: "A Journal To Self" or "The Healing Power of Writing", for example. If you are not sure that the diary is yours at all, you can try with simple techniques like huge lists ("100 things that I appreciate", "100 ways I help others") - it sounds very naive and at the same time grandiose but it is precisely due to the scale that it is possible to include not only logic, but also near-conscious mechanisms. You can write letters to the table; it helps to cope with strong emotions that you do not want to throw out on a particular person for various reasons. The familiar mind mapping can also be used for a diary (in situations where a cool solution or a straightforward look is required, such cards are the most important). When self-searching with caution, it is worthwhile to approach only those sources that recommend unrestricted writing (free writing): the absence of any instructions on the topic or time may be unsafe in those cases when the author of the diary tries to work through the traumatized situation or is in a depressed state .
The recommendations for keeping diaries are more or less the same everywhere. It is important to remember that the diary is only needed to make you better - that is, any long-term deterioration in mood will be enough reason to stop writing (at least for a while) or choose another technique. You need to write in a relaxed state, in a place where you will not be disturbed, and at a time when you will not worry about unfinished business. One of the most important requirements of any diary technique is honesty with oneself, so it would be useful to take care that no one has ever found your diary. From the requirement of honesty, another important result arises: a personal text should not be perfect from the stylistic point of view, it may contain mistakes, missing punctuation marks and foreign words, the main thing is that it convey as precisely as possible what you would like to fix.
Photo: 1, 2, 3, 4 via Shutterstock, Wiki Art
