Why do psychologists like it when you bring a notebook to therapy?

Perhaps this happened to you. You go to your first session with your new one. psychologist and after the usual questions designed to explain your case a little, he tells you what the therapy will be. Besides some other details, it tells you that you will have to look for a notepad who will accompany you throughout the course of therapy. There you will do your homework, write down what you learned in class or what I tell you. More and more psychologists are attaching importance to the act write to therapy. But why?

The truth is that it largely depends on psychological course let the therapist follow you. Writing is usually the most used form of therapy. cognitive behavioral psychologists. Although the truth is that writing is highly valued in other movements. Of course, the cognitive behavioral school has the most scientific evidence, so ideally it is best to work with one of these psychologists.

There are many studies confirming benefits of writing in therapy. Obviously, this is not something fleeting or miraculous, but a tool that, when combined with many others, can be very useful. This usually helps the writer’s self-observation and reinforcement of actions that will eventually not need to be written down. Let’s see what science says about this.

Write to therapy to get to know yourself better

Typically, cognitive behavioral therapy involves the use of journals aimed at self-monitoring emotions and thoughts. Sometimes it costs us relativize what is happening to us. We believe certain thoughts that are nothing else, and we delve into the thoughts and emotions they evoke in us. But we don’t stop thinking about it, we just let ourselves go.

In these journals, users are expected to write whenever they have thoughts or emotions that make them feel uncomfortable. It should be reported when and where the stressful situation occurred, what automatic feelings gave rise to and what were the subsequent emotions and behavior.

This technique was described in 1979 by psychiatrist Aaron Beck and is very useful for people who practice it to become self-aware and discover automatic thoughts and beliefs, distinguishing them from reality. It is very useful to gradually reduce discomfort in alarming situations. Sometimes it is just a diary, and sometimes the client is given a table to fill out. But in any case, the goal is always the same.

It also works against anger

Another technique that is sometimes used when writing in therapy involves less of a practice notebook and more of a piece of paper that should be thrown in the trash. For example, you could write unpleasant thoughts and then tear up the paper or throw it away so that the feelings you evoke are extrapolated as well.

Recently a group of scientists from Nagoya UniversityA study was conducted in Japan on this matter. It involved 98 people who had to answer a survey about their emotions and then write an essay on a specific topic. After the work was completed, the experimenters sharply criticized the content of the work, regardless of its quality. The goal was cause feelings of anger, which were actually confirmed by a new survey. Afterwards, some participants were able to write on a piece of paper how they felt. However, among those who had this opportunity, some left the paper on the table, while others were able to put it in the shredder.

When they took the test again to see how they felt, those who were able to express their feelings of anger on paper felt better than those who did not. But, on the other hand, those who were able to tear the tome were even less angry. In fact, his anger level had almost completely decreased, up until the situation before writing the essay.

Yes, sure the number of participants is not very large, this study confirms the results of other similar studies using a new experimental method. Thus, it appears that writing in therapy may also help reduce anger.

Writing in Therapy for Coping with Difficult Situations

In 2021, a group of scientists from University of Memphis and North Georgiaconducted a study to test how writing in therapy affects people who have gone through difficult or traumatic situation.

In this case there was 120 volunteerswho has at least experienced two difficult events in their lives. They were divided into two groups. In the first, they had to write about one of these events, and in the second, about any interesting situation from their lives. Participants in the first group had to describe their positive and negative emotionsas good as avoidance tendency related both to the event they wrote about and to other difficult moments that they did not capture on paper.

Participants in the second group talked about their emotions and avoidance of two difficult events in their lives. Let us remember that they wrote about some other event that was not difficult for them.

In addition, they all had to report on their general melancholy. Surveys were conducted immediately after writing and later, when a week had passed.

Thus, it was found that participants who wrote about a difficult event were emotionally stronger towards it than towards one they could not write about. Moreover, they were much stronger than those who wrote about any situation.

So, in some ways, writing in therapy helps. relativize such situations and reduce the discomfort, pain and negative feelings that usually surround them.

Is it better manually or on a computer?

We have already seen that writing is useful in therapy. But why do they ask us for a notepad? Wouldn’t that be enough tablet or even the mobile phone itself?

It’s something that should be studied more deeply. In fact, the authors of the anger study want to dedicate a new experiment to prove it. However, it is clear that the letter is handwritten good for the brain.

In particular, it has been observed that when we write by hand many more areas of the brain are activated. Controlled hand movements strengthen the neural connections associated with educationin a way that is useful not only to students, but also to those who have to write during therapy. If the goal is to relativize emotions and observe thoughts, then the learning resulting from all this will be much better when writing by hand.

In a word, a psychologist’s notebook is an indispensable tool. The time will come when the therapeutic work that we write down on paper can be done simply in the mind. But first, Notebook She is an undeniable ally. Plus, you can always look for a nice notebook. If you are a stationery lover, this has all the benefits.