Doc Snipes
10 Journaling Tools for Mental Health & How to Use Journaling to Improve Mental Health & Mindfulness
Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Qualified Clinical Supervisor. She received her PhD in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Florida in 2002. In addition to being a practicing clinician, she has provided training to counselors, social workers, nurses and case managers internationally since 2006 through AllCEUs.com 📢SUBSCRIBE and click the BELL to get notified when new videos are uploaded.
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00:00 Purpose of Journaling
01:00 Baseline Journaling
02:42 Narrative Journaling
03:33 Mindfulness Journaling
04:00 Alternative Voice Journaling
05:00 Prose (diary); poetry or pictorial (scrapbook) journaling
07:00 What color or animal did you feel like today
8:10 Worksheets / short answer journaling
09:15 Audio Journaling (record yourself)
11:00 Video journaling
11:30 How to Use Journaling
13:49 Organizing or “purging” ruminative thoughts
hey there everybody and welcome
to this presentation on journaling in counseling strategies and uses this is
part of the nc mhce and nce exam review series i'm your host dr dawn elise snipes in this really short video we're going to explore
at least four different forms of journaling and identify 11 different ways that you can use journaling to improve health mental
health and even behavior change so we're going to start with the types of
journaling one of the well let me back up and say when people think of journaling a
lot of times they think of keeping a diary and that is one type of journaling but there are
a lot of different ways that we can use journaling in order to track our behaviors in order to gain
perspective so let's take a look at a few of them so baseline journaling is one of the simplest
and it's one that i like to do because i'm not a narrative type of journaler so i
like to have something where i can keep um charts or logs those are that's my
kind of thing with baseline journaling what you're keeping track of is the frequency
the intensity or the duration of a behavior so for example if you are trying to reduce how
frequently you get extremely angry then you may keep a log throughout the day and throughout the
week of each time you get angry how intense it was on a scale of one to five and how long you stayed
angry and the goal of treatment ultimately would be to reduce the frequency the intensity and
the duration but you're probably going to see you know unequal progress in those you may start
reducing the intensity but you're still getting angry as much but that's okay because that
means you're moving in the right direction i like baseline journaling because it helps us
see those micro changes that people are making and it helps keep people motivated it also helps
us see if something is starting to go amiss because we can look at the journal and if
for some reason the behavior is starting to increase and we don't want it to we
can step back and take a look and say what's going on that might be making this
behavior increase instead of decrease narrative journaling is what we typically think of
like writing in a diary and you can use narrative journaling to reflect on the day you know
write about what happened you can use narrative journaling to reflect on a particular episode or
incident you can write about it in order to try to gain more awareness of your thoughts your feelings
and your behaviors and how they interact in that particular situation when you are in
distress when you're angry anxious depressed a lot of times you are thinking in your
emotional mind you are not as easily able to access your cognitions so in narrative
therapy you're stepping back and you're observing and uh in uh dialectical behavior therapy
linehan talks about mindfulness as observing describing and participating
in narrative therapy you are writing out your observations so you're describing what
happened and then you can use that information to participate in order to figure out okay what do
i want to do the same the next time and what might i need to to change in order to work towards
my goals you can also write in what i call an alternate voice narrative so you're reflecting
from a different perspective maybe you got into a disagreement with your significant other or your
best friend so you might write a journal as if they were writing it you're writing it from
their perspective in order to try to gain an understanding maybe of what they might have been
thinking you can also write from the perspective of your younger self or your older self you know
20 years from now when you look back on this what would you tell yourself if you're writing
from the perspective of your younger self what would eight-year-old you have said because a lot
of times our reactions are often based in prior schema prior learned behaviors so if we tap into
that eight-year-old we might start understanding oh okay it makes sense to a certain extent why
i reacted that way to that particular thing so be open to writing from an alternate voice
to trying to take a different perspective to see if it gives you a greater depth
of understanding of what's going on some people really don't like writing prose
and that's cool i get it there are some programs online and i'm sure you can get apps
where you can create graphic novels and some people prefer to do that they prefer to have
something that's a little bit more artistic some people prefer to write in poems instead of
prose and more power to you however it helps you to get that information out whatever it is
that you're trying to journal about um it is going to be helpful and journaling well we'll
talk about the uses for journaling in a minute pictorial and and this is something
that people who are really artistic might choose to do where they're drawing
representations of what they were feeling or what they are feeling in the moment so pictorial
can be useful for people who are like i said are very artistic and especially use different
media i had one person i worked with who when he was feeling particularly depressed or angry
would use charcoal and when he was feeling more hopeful or optimistic he tended to use pastels
and and other other media that weren't quite as bold faces colors and animals now a lot of adults
won't like this particular approach but this is really useful for children and as a parent or a
caregiver you can help your child start becoming more mindful with this type of journaling so at
the end of the day you might show them a facesheet and ask them which face they felt most of the
day or which face they're feeling right then some people don't like faces they'd rather look
at colors did you feel red or black or blue or green you know how was it that you felt today what
color did you feel and why or and kids really love animals what animal did you feel like today were
you a lion or a bunny rabbit or a squirrel and why so being relatively flexible but this is a great
way for to get kids involved and quite honestly as an adult i kind of like this too because it gets
me to look at it from a different perspective so if i was particularly anxious during the day i
might say that i felt like a squirrel most of the day and you know then i stepped back and i think
you know what's going on in a squirrel's mind so it can send you down you know different ways of
thinking if you approach it from a more creative side of your brain as opposed to
the logical side of your brain worksheets are also very helpful if you want
somebody or if you are trying to journal um to do something that's relatively narrative
but they have difficulty with just sitting down and writing out prose then giving them worksheets
with prompts that they're supposed to answer each whenever they do it so when i worked in
residential we used to have morning and evening journaling and each person had a sheet
that had prompts to help them evaluate how they were feeling physically effectively cognitively if
there was anything going on in their relationships what their goals were for the day etc and this
helped a lot of people because it provided guidance on what do i write and it also kept
it succinct for those people who really don't like to write a lot they had to provide short
answers they didn't have to write a paragraph and audio and video can also be helpful
some people don't like to write for some people it hurts them to write for
others for example people with dyslexia sometimes writing and and or typing can be
frustrating so audio can be helpful where you just get a voice app and put it on your phone uh your
or your digital device or even on your computer and you can record it or on your computer
you can do voice to text if you record it with audio or video you can use that recording
and again have it translated from voice to text why am i emphasizing the text because when
we talk and when we think what we say what we think kind of appears and disappears but when
it's there in text it's more ever-present and it can encourage people to think about it a
little bit more it keeps it more organized and in your sight so you can think about it and it just
doesn't like get pushed to the side really quickly so i do suggest even for people who may
have dyslexia or or some other sort of learning disability to to put things in text as
much as possible or in some sort of format that helps them be able to see it indefinitely so they
can they can continue to look at what they said and ponder it and think about it from different
perspectives and i keep talking about audio some people prefer to do it with video they want to
keep their own little vlog and that's fine you know obviously you're probably not going to
keep a public vlog but keeping a a private um video journal on your on your laptop
or something can be an alternative to writing in prose so how can you
use journaling what is it good for well a lot of therapists are going to recommend
journaling so it's important to recognize or figure out why it's useful and also go back to
those techniques that i just discussed to identify what technique are you most likely going to be
able to stick with and and it's really important in order to get compliant if you told me to
write a narrative journal every single day my compliance would probably be pretty low because
i don't know how to start i don't really know what i want to say blah blah you know at the
most narrative you're going to get out of me is giving me a worksheet with prompts but like i
said i tend to like um lists and logs and things that are a little bit more succinct that's just
me so journaling can be used to identify and restructure thoughts and cognitive distortions so
when you write about a situation you write down what you were thinking what you were telling
yourself and then you can objectively when you're not steeped in adrenaline and anxiety or
anger you can go back and objectively analyze if you were using a cognitive distortion and
if you were then you can rewrite it using more accurate cognitions journaling can
help you make connections between thoughts feelings and behaviors when you're journaling
it out you can start to see when i think this it makes me feel this way and then i act this way
oh that makes sense now or when i feel this way then i start having pessimistic thoughts
and i start to withdraw from others so you can start to see how different things uh
all fit together and you can figure out where you might want to fine-tune things if you need to
address your thoughts address your cognitions or if you maybe you need to change your
behaviors maybe you recognize that when you drink you tend to become much more pessimistic and feel
more depressed well that would give you a clue you can also use journaling to help you purge
and organize thoughts i've i've used the analogy before that ruminative thoughts when we're
thinking about something and we just have them going six ways till sunday in our head we've
got monkey mind and we're trying to remember things it can be really hard to organize
because it's like you're trying to juggle and organize the balls at the same time and try to
get like all the green balls on this side and all the red balls on this side it doesn't work so when
you journal you're getting it all out of your head and you're putting it on paper and a lot of
times and you know we don't really understand exactly why our brain responds this way but a
lot of times when we write it down where we've got it you know concretely so we know we can't
forget it our brain lets go of it and it doesn't keep bouncing around in our head because our brain
goes okay i know you're not gonna forget that now so journaling can be helpful for organizing
thoughts like all the things that you've got to do write them down and then a lot of
times it'll help tame that monkey mind because you won't feel like you're still trying to
juggle and do your work at the same time you can use journaling for
behavior tracking and progress and this can sometimes be used in a vision
journal and a vision journal is creating a vision identifying what your rich and meaningful
life looks like and then each day writing about the progress that you made toward that
vision what did you do to move toward or away from that vision today and what do you want to
continue doing and what might you need to adjust you can also use journaling as a narrative with
prompts to enhance mindfulness and insight and that's like the journal i was telling
you about that we used in residential each morning people would get up and they would
do their meditations and then they would focus and say how do i feel physically why how do i feel
emotionally why how do i feel cognitively why how do i feel in this environment right now and
why and then what do i need to do in order to mitigate any vulnerabilities so if i'm not feeling
emotionally great if i'm feeling depressed what do i need to do in order to be compassionate and
protect myself today from excess stress that might trigger or worsen that depression and what can i
do maybe to think about improving the next moment acknowledging how i feel acknowledging what's
causing it and then taking steps to address it you can also use journaling to increase
gratitude with a gratitude list or or journal and it's important to remember
in your in your gratitude journal to include your friends a lot of times we include things
like i've got a house i've got a job you know whatever but it's also important to include
your friends in there the people in your life that you're grateful for some people like to do
this as a list you know just write it down some people like to do it pros talk about what they're
grateful for that day some people like to do it a little bit more artistically and maybe get some
branches and put them in a vase and then get some present tags and on each present tag write one
thing that you're grateful for hang those on the branches like leaves to create what what we call
a gratitude tree so yes you're not journaling in a book but you are still compiling your thoughts
and that's really what journaling is all about you can enhance your awareness of your impact on
others and their impact on you through journaling so you might journal about interactions you
had with people throughout the day and identify which ones helped you feel empowered and safe and
which ones not so much and also recognize become more mindful of your impact on them you know
when i interacted with this person today did i improve their moment or did i contribute to
their distress and and why was it something did i encroach on their boundaries was i not empathetic
what was it that i did or didn't do and is it something i need to address you know everybody is
responsible for how they handle their own emotions so just because you do something maybe you have to
you know scold your child or talk to a subordinate and you know get on them about something it may
make them upset you know it may trigger distress in them if you do it in the kindest way possible
the most helpful way possible you are treating them as you want to be treated you're providing
that feedback which evidently is necessary what they do with their emotions is on them
that's different than being you know openly mean to somebody and treating them in a
way that you wouldn't want to be treated so this can really help you identify are you
treating others the way you want to be treated and are you you know sort of
improving their moment you can look use journaling to enhance your self-esteem
by keeping track of your accomplishments what did i do right today what did i do
well today you can give yourself compliments in your self-esteem journal nobody else has to
read it but tell yourself the things that you would tell your best friend you know if they're
having a good hair day you know maybe you'd say just looks like you're having a great hair day
today well tell yourself the same thing if that's true if they do something particularly well or
you just want to note how kind they've been lately you know great so do the same thing to yourself
if you notice that you've been particularly compassionate lately and you're proud of that
then give yourself a pat on the back for it keeping this self-esteem journal with your
accomplishments and your your compliments your recognition of what you're doing well is
great to have around because there are going to be times that you screw up and it's important
to be able to look back and acknowledge yes i made a mistake here i did something that you
know i'm not proud of or i failed or whatever but being able to look back and counter balance
mistakes and failures with successes and positive things is important for continued growth to keep
that vision keep that awareness of the entire range of what you do instead of focusing
just on the failures or the mistakes you can use journaling to work through grief
and forgiveness with unsent letters uh maybe you've got people in your past that you still hold
resentment towards or you still grieve their loss or you didn't get to say things before you lost
them journaling by by writing letters to them can be very cathartic because you're getting all
that stuff out and you can either write it in a book and keep that book some people will write
it and then they will you know go outside and read it to the universe and then you know
burn it uh some people will write it then shred it whatever you want to do generally these
letters are not sent but they are a way for you to get out those feelings get out those
thoughts and process them so they don't keep bouncing around and taking up space in your
brain you can identify subconscious messages with dream journaling and you know i'm not big
on dream interpretation but i know and heck my husband even notices that when i'm stressed
about work i have the same one or two dreams every single time so if i have this dream and
it comes up and you know i've had the same dream you know various permutations on and off
for the past 25 years and you know it's important for me to recognize that
when i start having that dream i'm getting really stressed and i'm holding
that stress throughout my sleep time writing down your dreams can also help you
just explore you know why did my brain go there and sometimes it may be completely innocuous
sometimes it may give you a clue about something you're stressed about and um so you
can so you can look at it and possibly process it you know i had this weird dream about my
daughter and a random turtle that she found and released in our in our pond the other
day and so thinking about that i'm like what in the world did that mean um and ultimately
you know my daughter loves animals very much and in my dream bad things happen to the turtle uh
and she was very upset and i hate seeing her upset you know i have to you know she's a she's an
adult now i gotta let her have her feelings but uh for some reason you know there was something
that was concerning me that made me think that you know maybe i needed to do
something because maybe she was upset and so writing about your dreams you may not get
a true understanding of what they were but i know it had something to do with her me not wanting her
to be upset so you know it made me feel better i checked checked in with her the next morning how
are things going everything everything was fine and i didn't have the dream again so score
for me um and then finally you can enhance positivity and awareness of dialectics that means
the good and the bad with a positivity journal and they've actually done research on this and they
found that people who spend 20 minutes a day journaling about the things that went right that
day or and and some people don't journal about it they just dedicate like dinner time to only
talking about the things that went right that day it tends to improve their mood and it tends to
improve their um cognitive perceptions instead of being pessimistic they tend to be more optimistic
and that um change tends to persist past when they're doing the journaling so the next morning
they tend to get up and feel more optimistic so that can be good now i'm not saying only
focus on the positive all the time no that's toxic positivity it's not what we want all i'm
saying is take a timeout where you say all right the other 23 hours and 40 minutes of the day you
know i am noticing all the all the crap but during this 20 minutes i'm gonna notice the positive and
i'm just going to focus on the positive so i can recognize that there is good in the world and
you can even do this if you go outside and i spend 20 minutes looking around and identifying
things that make you happy and it can be visual auditory whatever identifying sight smells sounds
that make you happy noticing what is right in your environment right now so you know for me it would
be bunny rabbits birds or chickens you know there are a lot of different things that i can look
at and say you know what this is this is okay journaling is a tool that can be used between
counseling sessions or just by an individual on a day-to-day basis to help you continue to make
progress toward your goals journaling needs to be tailored to the preferences and abilities of
the person obviously a five or eight year old is probably not going to write a narrative journal
they're going to do the faces or the animals or maybe even an audio journal if they're a little
bit older but you know somebody who is an adult may have a wider array of things to choose ways
to choose to journal so you know i know i have not hit every possible method of journaling or every
possible way of using journaling and if you have a way that you use journaling that you really
like please share that in the comments below
#Journaling #Tools #Mental #Health #Journaling #Improve #Mental #Health #Mindfulness
source
00:00 Purpose of Journaling
01:00 Baseline Journaling
02:42 Narrative Journaling
03:33 Mindfulness Journaling
04:00 Alternative Voice Journaling
05:00 Prose (diary); poetry or pictorial (scrapbook) journaling
07:00 What color or animal did you feel like today
8:10 Worksheets / short answer journaling
09:15 Audio Journaling (record yourself)
11:00 Video journaling
11:30 How to Use Journaling
13:49 Organizing or "purging" ruminative thoughts
What about stream of conciousness journalling? Is that under any therapy?
The uses of enhancing awareness on the impact of relationships and the use of enhancing awareness and positivity of my dialects are excellent techniques to journal on.
Thank you Dr. Snipes for this awesome video on journaling. Thank you for giving the techniques on how to journal. I believe in journaling but I needed guidance. And, here you have given that guidance. I made notes on this video.
This video was extremely helpful
Thank you so much for all of your amazing videos ! They have been so helpful for me to learn about mental illness and possible causes and holistic avenues for treatment. I have struggled with MDD , generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD . I suffered my first intense trauma at a very young age and it seemed to repeat my entire childhood. I’m now 41 years old and it has really hindered my ability to have a healthy relationship with myself and others. I can’t seem to find a MD or psychiatrist that will work with me or take me seriously . I am so very thankful to learn and understand what could be causing some of my symptoms and see the different ways I can try some of the safer self treatment suggestions such as the ones in this video .
You’re new to me but such a breath of fresh air as well as informative!! Your clarity helps me be more clear! Distinguishing different specific ways to write is interesting and extremely helpful!! Thank you!!
I get to practice my brilliant touch typing skills
Thx so much. I’m watching from Australia’s.BPD. Four years in therapy. Intensive. Co occurring.
My family counselor therapist Mary thinks it's great that I am taking this skills on daily basis it helps me tremendously thank you Dr. Dawned I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much
I usually only used journaling when in a rage to get it out in a non destructive way. Or at times when depressed. But you have reminded me that I can also journal to express my joy as well.
27 minutes is a " really short video" lol jk. I love your videos and appreciate all the free info
Thanks for another fantastic video. I really loved when you posted some journal prompts a few months ago – they got me thinking deeply. Would you be interested in dedicating a video (perhaps short) to solely journal prompt ideas? That would be so appreciated. Thanks, Dawn-Elise!
You brought up a lot of techniques to use journaling and I can make use of them in my sessions. You are a great teacher and you are like a Mother Theresa to me as you are doing these free of cost.
This is a great video and offers many creative techniques and uses. Thank you!
You said something I could relate to about the recurring stress dream. In mine, I'm driving and I can't see or properly control the car. Sometimes it's because an incline is too steep and the car is about to flip. Other times the brakes won't work. Or it's the windshield wipers and I'm driving blind. Or I'm in the backseat. Usually someone I care about is in the car.
i don't go back to my diary … it's like I'm in a groundhog day
Great resource!