Keeping a Journal         Many survivors find that keeping a journal helps them to express emotions, understand their experiences and show the progress of healing that they are making. There are different ways to record what is happening as we heal and this article may give you some ideas.

There are books that explain how keeping a journal can help healing, a good book is Courage To Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, there is also a workbook that can be used as well. Another useful book is Breaking Free by Carolyn Ainscough and Kay Toon, there is also a workbook.  More information on these books can be found on the book reviews page.

Beginning your journal can be the hardest part of all.  How do you start, what do you use? What will you write?  The most important thing is that this is for you. It may be that at some point you will want to share parts with a friend, therapist or even on this site. To start it is best to just consider it for recording your own private thoughts, feelings and experiences. Once you start to put things onto paper or onto a computer in a journal folder you may find that feelings or new memories come to the surface. This can be scarey and seem unhelpful at first, but it is important to remember that healing comes through accepting and integrating our experiences. Remember that there is support available, if you need support there is a list of support links on this site. Thank you to all who have shared their different ways of journal keeping, (see below)

    Writing  Drawing  Painting  Collage  Photos Box Colour  Poetry  Music 
All these are ways of expressing yourself, each person will have different ways of constructing their journal.  Notebooks, large pieces of paper, computer, diary, sketch books or a box to keep notes in are just some ways that survivors record their journal. To view some samples taken from S.A.S. member's journals click here.

Together, we make the difference