Why Writing is a Form of Therapy

Contributed to Bookpleasures.com By Rachel Michelberg, published 4/20/2021

During the long, long process of writing my memoir (eleven years!) I was often asked if I was doing it as a form of therapy. “It must be very cathartic for you,” they’d declare, as if that were a given. I’d nod and murmur “yes it is,” but with an internal eyeroll. 

My intention had never been to deal with my feelings through writing. I wrote because I had a story – an intense, disturbing, sometimes bizarre story I was compelled to tell. It wasn’t until I finished the manuscript that I realized the potential of the writing process in working through my issues. In other words, it was a powerful form of therapy.

I’m somewhat of a therapy connoisseur. When I was seventeen, I called my confirmation class teacher (also a licensed clinical therapist) at the synagogue I attended. “My mom is drinking a lot,” I confessed. “How can I help her?” 

“Oh Rachel – that’s not your job. I’d like to see you, just the two of us. When are you free?”

In the many, many intervening years since, I’ve done a lot of therapy. Couples, family, for my kids…you name it. But I wasn’t prepared for the capacity of the pen (or laptop) to bring clarity, focus, and especially closure to some of the more serious issues I grappled with in my life and in my memoir: guilt, shame, self-reproach, ignominy – to name a few.

A good therapist – and I’ve had several – will guide her client to dig deeper for the truth by asking the right questions. She will not give answers, direction, or render criticism.  

A good writer, a courageous writer, will also probe the depths of her intentions and feelings without judgment. In acting, we call it subtext. What’s going on beneath the surface? Uncovering subtext can reveal profound truths that will bring depth and richness to your characters.

Some of the best writing advice I received was from writing teacher and James Joyce scholar Susan Brown. She encouraged her students to dig deeper by having us ask the question: “Who am I kidding?” to get to the answer, “What I was really thinking was…” Susan had us make a chart by drawing a vertical line down a piece of paper, with the headings “External Plot” on the left and “Internal Monologue” on the right. Imagining (or re-imagining in the case of memoir) what thoughts were going through your mind – the more nitty-gritty the better - is a truly powerful tool.  

Creating the chart is a profound exercise that is sure to plumb and reveal the complexities of your characters, making them infinitely more interesting and relatable to your reader. 

Here’s a sample from the chart for my memoir Crash: How I Became a Reluctant Caregiver. In this chapter, my husband David (who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury sustained in a plane crash) was being transferred from the ICU of the hospital where he was taken after the accident to a hospital closer to our home.

External plot: First 6 weeks after David is back in San Jose. At gymnastics show. Hearing truth from Dr. about David’s prognosis. Continued spiral down with weight loss/eating disorder. Continuing to see Mark. Sleeping with Mark before David’s discharge, late for David’s eye appointment. 

Internal monologue: Shit, I’m really single parent now. I can’t break off my affair with Mark, it’s the only thing I have to look forward to. Thank God David is still in the hospital, I’m dreading him coming home. I’m losing weight, but it’s fine, I’m not having a recurrence of anorexia, like everyone says, I’m just insanely stressed. The doctor is finally telling me the truth. Do I need to get my kids into therapy? 

I completed this chart about halfway through writing my manuscript, though there isn’t a right or wrong time to do it. It was surprising to see how much deeper I could go with what I’d already written, how it supported and guided me as I worked to complete the story. The layers peeled away like an onion skin. 

The writing guru Natalie Goldberg, in her superb book Writing Down the Bones, offers this advice: “Don’t think. Don’t get logical. Go for the jugular – if something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.” In this case she is referring to the basic unit of writing practice – the timed exercise – but it can apply to all writing. When self-consciousness, filters, judgments are present, we tend to hold back, block or even manipulate the truth. A good (translate, effective) therapy session is the same. Getting to the point of tears is often when you know you’ve uncovered something painful, something true. 

Writing=therapy. I’ll try not to cry all over my keyboard. 

Aw, let ‘em flow. Who am I kidding?