More recently, a close friend of mine has been battling cancer for two years. Drawing on what I know about personal essay writing, and the research that has been done in the field of expressive writing, I realized that virtually any type of cancer patient could benefit from writing about their cancer experience. I have a stack of them, although I rarely go back and read them. Journaling, though, is not necessarily the same as expressive writing. But when you do expressive writing for the purpose of healing, you focus on stressful or traumatic events, and explore what you think and feel about them.
Some people like to go back and reread their journals.
That's not necessary to reap the healing effects that I described earlier. The research that was done in the 1980s by Dr. James W. Pennebaker and his associates showed that what was important was translating the emotional experiences into language. Even if there was no meaning to an event, it became psychologically complete. Now some people may choose to publish what they write, and there are many stories out there about surviving cancer that give hope to patients who are currently undergoing treatment. I lead a course called Writing About Cancer in which I give writing topics with prompting questions to my students each week and they write about that topic.