3 Ways to Have Therapy Without a Therapist

I went out to dinner the other night and had a conversation with someone who had gone on a silent retreat.

A silent retreat is where you go to be unplugged from the world and not even talk to others.

She went for four days, and for her, the first two days were fairly easy, but on the third day, a lot of “stuff” started to surface.

I told her that was something I’d like to try, and then shared with her the Pennebaker journaling technique.

With Pennebaker journaling, you choose some trauma you’ve experienced and free-write about it for 20 minutes. It doesn’t have to be a deep trauma. Start small.

The idea is to write uninhibitedly. No one will see what you write, so be true to yourself and your feelings.

Then the next day you do the same thing. You write for 20 minutes about the same trauma. You do this for four days. The idea is that by writing about the same thing, each day, you peel back more layers.

If it brings up too much stuff, you can spread out the days. Perhaps do it once a week over four weeks.

We then discussed how although journaling isn’t for everyone, writing down your inner thoughts and feelings is extremely powerful for mental processing. Which led to the bite-sized version of daily journaling.

I personally journal for 5 to 10 minutes every day. You could do free writing, but I prefer to work with prompts. Every day I answer the following 7 questions.