Whether it’s by talking or writing about your past traumatic experiences, you will benefit. Dr. James Pennebaker, in his excellent book entitled, Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions cites research that shows how writing about painful traumatic experiences reduces physical illness and in some cases helps individuals control their anger. He tells of one study where a group of individuals were laid off from their jobs with no notice after over 20 years of loyal service. In his research study, those who wrote in detail about what happened to them were less angry afterwards, and were much more likely to get jobs than those who did not write about their experience.
The idea here is that writing about their experience made these men less angry, and therefore better applicants for new positions. Whatever is going on in your life (and a lot of folks are out of work right now), write about your anger, frustration and the experiences that lead to those feelings. It will help. It won’t solve all of your problems, but it will help.
You either work on your past or it works on you.
