Journaling has endless applications—from therapeutic writing to creative freeflow— everything is possible. One common characteristic of all these different techniques is that Journaling asks the writer to let their words flow onto the page from an inner point of no-censorship, trying to access a pre-conscious point of the mind, thereby bypassing their own mental patterns. It allows for surprising results to emerge which often were unknown to the writer themselves.

Benefits range from getting creative insights or ideas (fostered through techniques like Freewriting), to unblocking one´s creative potential (e.g. through the technique of writing Morning Pages), to identifying concrete action steps (as elicited through the method of Guided Journaling as proposed in Theory U), to confronting and resolving emotional distress or even trauma (as done in expressive writing).

Writers or facilitators may well design their own prompts to kick off a flow of unconscious content. It is advisable to ask writers to stop if they feel overwhelmed by what is pouring out. The contents of Journaling exercises are always private to the writer themselves, but they might choose to share as much of it as they like in a group setting or during a one-on-one session with the facilitator later. It is also helpful to set boundaries related to the length of the text: these may be a certain number of pages or a certain amount of time.

Journaling is a potent tool for many purposes. Knowing several techniques can help to design or choose the one best suited for the specific purpose at hand.

• Freewriting: look up the entry on Freewriting in the Hosting Social Transformation Toolbox
• Morning Pages: look up instructions by its author Julia Cameron
• Guided Journaling as proposed in Theory U: look up the entry on Guided Journaling in the Hosting Social Transformation Toolbox
• Expressive writing: look up several formats by its author Dr. James Pennebaker