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

Rating:
Summary: Difficult steps towards inner healing
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Difficult steps towards inner healing
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: THE "starter" book for anyone new to journaling-as-therapy
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Hard work made rewarding.
Review: 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.