Journaling is actually quite a good, widely welcomed, evidence-based form of medicine, which is why I was a bit troubled by Katie Roiphe’s Oct. 2 op-ed, “Wellness gurus love journaling. My marriage didn’t.” She mentioned that one survey found that almost half of all Americans record their feelings in a journal. But instead of acknowledging the real benefits of this practice, she dwelled on intruders who read, or might read, journals. I can testify that I’ve happily and beneficially kept a journal for almost 70 years, and never experienced such an intrusion.
In 1986, University of Texas researcher James Pennebaker and his colleagues published the first expressive writing study, which showed the therapeutic benefits of journaling. The practice is not a panacea, but studies have repeatedly shown emotional and physical benefits for people with anxiety, depression, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain and other conditions.
I’m a psychiatrist, and over the past 30 years, I’ve seen journaling enhance feelings of self-worth and self-efficacy, and provide emotional relief for seriously traumatized people, including combatants and civilians in war zones and American adults and children with life-threatening illnesses. It’s a no-cost practice that can help us get to know ourselves much better while it gives us perspective on, and lowers, the stress that is part of all of our lives.
James S. Gordon, Washington
The writer is the author of “Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing,” and was chair of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
I read Katie Roiphe’s article about her unfortunate experience with journaling — or rather, her unfortunate experience with her first husband. What struck me most was her conclusion: Because keeping a journal led to disastrous results for her, she recommends that others abandon the practice, too.
I have kept a journal for more than 40 years, and I recently started a YouTube channel about journaling, creativity and memory. A recent video about becoming the caretaker of my grandmother’s and mother’s journals has been viewed more than 1 million times. The video received comments from thousands of people describing how journaling has helped them process their emotions, track their days, preserve memories, explore their creativity, find gratitude and connect across generations. It is difficult, then, to see a practice that has given so much meaning to so many people be dismissed because of one person’s painful experience.
Many people have told me that they intend — or have already chosen — to burn their journals in a cathartic bonfire one day. To that I say: Go for it. There can be something genuinely liberating about letting the past go, particularly after a difficult period of life. But that is very different from telling everyone else to do the same.
In fact, journaling has a crucial value at a time when so much of our thinking is shaped by what we encounter online. Today, so many people parrot what they watch on TikTok, retweet what goes viral on X or, worst of all, fully outsource their thinking to artificial intelligence. I worry that without journaling, we could start to lose our ability to truly think for ourselves.
Amanda Close, New York
My late husband and I kept a joint journal for many years. It wasn’t a place to write deep thoughts, just a he-said, she-said account of our very mundane lives. “I grilled chicken for dinner” appeared a surprising number of times. There was some marital drama. Tom usually wrote first, so I often got the last word. I was right, of course. I stopped writing for a while after he died, but I’ve started again. I find it’s helpful to write a little bit every day, just to keep going. Even if no one ever reads it.
Nora Raum, Alexandria
I’m one of those people who like to write my journal entries in a coffee shop, someone whom Katie Roiphe’s Oct. 2 op-ed ridiculed as “obviously caught up in romantic notions about themselves.” Since I was a child, I’ve had a strong interest in history, which drove me to document my own. I began keeping a journal in 1974, when I was 23, and I have written in it continuously since. Recently, I’ve begun reading the notebooks from the beginning and am up to 2022. They’re full of my life experiences: accomplishments, relationships, travels, nature, cultural outings, books, and hundreds of people whom I’ve encountered along the way, along with comments on how all of it affected me. They also describe how I’ve dealt with disappointments, chronic illness and sadness. Through it all/,/ I see myself developing a philosophy of life to help me get through it. It is deeply personal and full of feeling.
Roiphe disparaged journaling as “melodrama,” “performative moments,” “scribbling” something onto paper that is “cranky and self-involved and trivial,” and she insisted that the entries don’t, or shouldn’t, qualify as a true memory of one’s self.
On reading my journals, I also found they contained very little that would make me feel ashamed or embarrassed if someone else read them. Instead, I found myself reliving moments, relationships, events — both happy and unhappy — and came away feeling that I’ve led a full life to the best of my ability.
Walter Albano, Washington
When I finally learned to listen
I was tempted to play “Do You Want to Know a Secret” by the Beatles while I read the Oct. 2 online Optimist article, “There’s a simple way to become a better listener. Most of us don’t do it,” which included a simple but not always easy to implement “reflective listening” prescription.
It has taken me a long time to realize that the same kinds of persistent and efficient issue-spotting and problem-solving skills that helped me be a successful attorney and community advocate interfered with my marriage and parenting. It wasn’t that I was too busy or preoccupied with work. In some ways it was just the opposite. As soon as my family or friends came to me with a problem, I was “on it.” I was ready to problem-solve, advocate, research and intercede. And, yes, I was sometimes helpful. But I didn’t “get it.” I didn’t take the time to fully listen.
I was blessed and surprised to meet my strong, direct and independent partner in 2007. Jill lets me know when she just wants me to listen. She can laugh at me and with me, and set me straight. She’s said to me, “When I want or need your advice, I’ll ask for it. Otherwise, back off.” And I grin from ear to ear and take three steps backward.
Michael B. Goldenkranz, Seattle
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