Journal to the Self: Twenty-two Paths to Personal Growth

Kathleen Adams

ISBN 0-446-39038-0

Amazon link

Journal therapy has been popularized by Dr. Ira Progoff since 1966 with his Intensive Journal Workshop. Kathleen Adams has written a great addition for those interested in journal therapy. As she states: “The goal of humanistic journal therapy is a healthy relationship with self, and this book is intended to facilitate this development….In its very essence, journal therapy is a bridge into first our own humanity, and then our own spirituality. The road stretches before us, and our ultimate task is the journey.”

The Journal Toolbox from pages 71-189 has a large selection of ideas for journal writing. These ideas include:

1) Springboards: begins with a topic statement or question. Samples are quotations, questions, random ideas, and sentence-completions. Keep a list of springboards in your journal for those days you have not topic.

2) Character Sketch: a written description of anyone which can be used to work out conflict in your relationships. It helps us to see ourselves as others see us. She suggests thinking of character sketches as the “calling cards” of your sub personalities.

3) Clustering-is also called mind mapping or webbing. To begin, write a key word or phrase in the middle of the page and draw a circle around it. Then begin to free-associate. Circle each word and connect it with a line to the one before it. Continue until you have exhausted your immediate possibilities. When working on a large project, Adams suggests putting butcher or mural paper on the wall. I use a dry-eraser board.

4) Captured Moments: are these tiny moments of intimacy, yearning, beauty, despair, exhilaration. They are best written from the senses.

5) Dialogue: is an exchange between you and someone or something else, where you play both parts. Adams gives several suggestions of how to develop the dialogue. It can be with anyone in your life-past, present, or future; living or dead or not yet born. She writes that we create our own reality and that is also true that we draw into our lives the players who will help us act out whatever life script were starring in this season.

6) Lists: she suggests journal lists of 100 such as things I need or want to do, fears, things I like about myself, and things I’m stressed out about. She also includes 100 things to write a list of 100 about.

7) Stream of Consciousness: has as its purpose examining the subconscious and unconscious minds. One of the values of stream of consciousness is its ability to bring you to state of inner serenity and balance. Throughout the book, Adams uses guided imagery or meditation to help journal writers get into a writing frame of mind.

Steppingstones: “are those events that come to our minds when we spontaneously reflect on the course that our life has taken from its beginning to the present moment” according to Progoff. Adams recommends limiting your selection of Steppingstones to about 12 to 15.

9) Time Capsules: are entries that are periodic logs written on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, even yearly basis. Adams suggests that these brief entries will often tend to focus on the content of your life as opposed to the feelings generated by the content. You may select a daily time capsule, a monthly time capsule, an annual time capsule, or travel time capsules.

Finally, Adams gives topics du jour which is a journal technique that allows you to start moving mountains, one boulder at a time. Topics du jour allows you to keep an ongoing chronicle of your life at monthly intervals. She suggests creating 31 topics-one for each day of the month. You may also choose to do 16 topics with a specific topic such as biweekly business checkups.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Other twelve-step groups have modified the twelve steps slightly from those of Alcoholics Anonymous to refer to problems other than alcoholism.