Have you ever taken pen to paper when you were trying to process something overwhelming? Have you ever suggested this to your clients? Writing can be a powerful way to process painful experiences. There is a useful separation that’s created between one’s thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and the pen or keyboard. This separation or “being with,” instead of “being in” one’s experience is essential for healing. We all know that reliving something traumatic only re-enforces the trauma neural networks. Writing is a great way to create the necessary distance between what we’ve experienced and what we need to compassionately be with and process. It also aids clients in working through something challenging outside of the therapy office. It can be an adjunctive tool, a support to the psychotherapeutic work that is done in session.
As a therapist, who also has a trauma history and has been in therapy for most of my life, thirty-three years to be exact, writing a memoir, titled “To Be Loved” allowed me to access and process material from my history that I couldn’t get to or heal from in my years of psychotherapy. Writing is a powerful medium because we don’t write at the same pace as we think. It forces us to slow down and be with memories and experiences in a way that gives us a novel perspective, a unique angle, or an observer's view of a memory or moment in our lives. Writing accesses different parts of the brain compared to spoken word, so it allows us to articulate and share something that we’ve gone through in a new way.
I created a six-step process, along with fellow author Lissa Rankin, that combines memoir writing with principles from the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of therapy to help people move through the writing process with safety, structure, and boundaries. It allows input from all our various parts that have gone through difficult moments in life. It adds complexity, texture, and emotional and physical accessibility to the writing that vividly brings to life each moment in a way that speaking doesn’t allow.
Below are the steps in the “write to heal” protocol.
1. Map the moments that made you and identify the parts of yourself that want to write about the experience. For example, let the part of yourself that saw the look in your father’s eyes, and write about it when you said, “I hate you.” Let the part that ran through the house trying to get away from him write his story. Let the part that felt a surge of energy move through his body as he ran to his bedroom seeking safety and watched the hinges on the door move back and forth as he pounded on the door share his version. Also, let the part that eventually fell asleep after his father retreated write about that experience.
2. Allow each part to take the pen and write about the moment from their point of view. Make sure all parts give permission. Here, permission is key to creating safety. Listen inside and make sure all parts are okay with writing about this memory, and give them an opportunity to share their story.
Step 3. Write a love letter to each of the parts. Here we are validating each part's perspective and creating a compassionate relationship between you (the narrator) and the various parts of you that went through the experience.
Step 4. Next, single out the part that carries the pain and hurt from the moment. Make sure it shares all the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations related to the event.
Step 5. Validate the hurt part's experience and offer it a corrective experience. Let the hurt part write what it wished for, what it hoped would happen, what it needed back then and never got. The you of today can give the hurt part back then an emotionally corrective experience.
Step 6. Lastly, write about the memory on behalf of all the parts. Now you, the current-day narrator, can synthesize all the aspects and dimensions of the moment, taking all perspectives into account, and create a cohesive story, adding a literary, creative, authentic voice to the moment.
Writing to heal is a therapeutic, adjunct to therapy that helps people process and heal from their overwhelming experiences without reliving their trauma. It tells the story with a depth and complexity that includes all aspects of the experience, allowing the reader to experience the moment vividly and authentically without being traumatized by it.
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