Customer Reviews

The Way of the Journal: A Journal Therapy Workbook for Healing

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This is the book that got me started 5 1/2 years ago. I had been looking for a way to use my attraction to writing as a "way in" to my ongoing emotional process. This is the book that literally fell off the shelf into my lap. Filled with exercises that can be done over a two-week period, I blitzed through them all in two days. I was on my way and haven't stopped since. Writing has become my primary tool for self-help, comfort, inspiration, and connection.

The exercises in Way of the Journal are designed to help the reader (and journaler) identify which forms are of most direct benefit. Some people respond best to Alphapoems, others to the Five-Minute Sprint. Each structure is presented with the opportunity to experience it as well as to evaluate its effectiveness for the reader/writer. By the end, you have a clear understanding of what is and is not helpful to you, the individual.

In Way of the Journal, Adams taught me about containment. In process writing, I had been afraid of the intensity of my own emotions, afraid the writing would go too deep, leave me undone. Way of the Journal taught me to "dive deep and surface," to come up for air at regular intervals. And also to frame the emotional content of my writing within a structure that felt safer than free writing.

If you are just starting, this is the one to buy. If you need some exercises to "jump start" your writing, this is a great toolbox. If you want a list of outstanding references, check out the Bibliography.

Practical, well-researched, easy to use, an excellent reference for writers at any stage of development is their use of writing-as-process.

Adams' book provides effective tools for people who are working through difficult life experiences, which may include the full gamut from childhood sexual abuse to living with AIDS. This workbook is intended to help the therapist work with the client to access hidden feelings or agendas that might otherwise go unnoticed, thereby accelerating the healing process. Many of the ideas employed in the workbook are modifications of Ira Progoff's journal writing process. Adams offers several creative ideas to help one get started and feel safe as he/she sits before a blank page for the first time. The journal writing exercises are broken down into ten days with exercises that begin with sentence stems, clustering, alpha poems, character sketches, dialogues and finish with more difficult writing exercises such as free writing and journal dialogue. Adams also offers suggestions for when to use exercises that would help them jump start the journaling process and get to the crux of one's feelings when moving through difficult issues or life experiences. I have used several of the techniques and exercises offered, taking the time to access and reflect upon the experience later. I found this approach very useful for uncovering feelings that I was not aware of while writing.

This book is especially helpful for people who are recovering from abuse and have a tendency to get restimulated when doing open-ended writing. The author focuses on teaching techniques that can be used to help provide safety and structure to make the process of journaling a healing rather than retraumatizing one. I'm finding it quite valuable and feel grateful to have discovered it.

You know whom I mean--all those people jumping on the 'journaling' bandwagon. This book is the original and best. Others will pick or choose some of her techniques and exercises (and mmmaaaaaaybe give her credit) but throw in a little Oprah-ism and bam! pull the wool over the eyes of the new journaler. For example, Meyn's shamelessly mercenary _lessons in therapeutic writing_ steals several ideas from this book, and doesn't even bother to change the names--Alphapoems? Come on, my college students try harder when they're plagiarizing....

The reason the new trendies are getting away with it is this (well, two reasons, actually): we always think New means Better ('new and improved!' anyone remember New Coke?). Second, writing works. Seriously. There's almost no way you could commit to writing a journal and not get SOME benefit out of it. If you just sat and freewrote for 20 minutes a day (which Julia Cameron recommends) you'd get major benefits. If you just wrote a portrait or a memory or a dream, you'd benefit. There's NO WAY writing in a journal canNOT improve the quality of your life. Thus even when we read New Age so-and-so's latest retread of the same old stuff, we think so-and-so's a bloody genius, because, well, we wrote and felt better!

So, we really don't *need* new technigues, anything will do. However, we do LIKE new techniques, right? We like things that shake up our dull routine, that scrape up the bottom of the pond a bit. That get us thinking and looking at our lives in new ways. And this book is THE best, pound for pound, dollar for dollar, for that. She sets it as a course (and I did it as a course and highly recommend it, and I've been journaling for decades!) and after each day's activity, you get a chance to reflect on how that particular experience worked for you. So at the end of the 'course' you not only have concrete tools to use, you have experience with using them, so you can pick and choose which technique you *feel* like doing that day. I made myself a little deck of index cards and wrote one technique per card, so that when I need a boost or something different, I draw a card and go!

If you only get one book on journaling, get this one. It's the original, the best, the easiest to use, and the most useful. Even if you have other journaling books, get this one too, because it's that good, and it's wonderful to have ALL the good ideas in one place!

This workbook offers extensive exercises into the depths of journaling as healing therapy. As the life blood of The Center for Journal Therapy and a national expert as well as trainer in journal work, the author has "been there" and you know it after working with this book. Necessary work whether you are the healer or the healee.

I've purchased several books recently regarding writing journals as healing activities. The other books (by Pennebaker, De Salvo, Schaefer) all cited credible research that demonstrated the efficacy of a particular writing technique developed by James Pennebaker. Ms. Adam's books are based on "Intensive Journal Workshop" by Dr. Progoff. While the author says the method has "proved" effective, no support is provided. The writing prompts start from very controlled "sentence stems" all the way to "free writing" - in 10 days. ALL the other books I have found had no limit to days used. This is a significant error in this book - it has essentially "compartmentalized" PTSD treatment into 2 weeks where everybody does the same thing. Period. While 4th graders may learn a social studies unit in 2 weeks, PTSD by its very nature is too complex to be homogenized into 10 worksheets and finished in 2 weeks.I have not seen ONE article demonstrating that this method actually WORKS. It's easy, but I doubt it's good.

It is a very excellent book for all who want to know themselves better and enjoy journaling. I really learned a lot about myself in ways that were completely unexpected. I highly recommend it not just for every day writing but when there is a desire to deal and resolve stressful issues and events.

I found this book to be so helpful. I am new to Journaling so I get stuck alot. Now I have a lot of different ways to go. I even copied some of the material for later use....