Telling Stories: The Health Benefits of Narrative

Summary & key facts

Pennebaker reviews more than ten years of research on how telling or writing stories about traumatic or difficult experiences relates to health. He highlights studies done by him and other teams around the world. The essay focuses mainly on reported physical health benefits of writing about these experiences and summarizes the findings and issues in that body of work.

Key facts:

• The paper reviews over ten years of research by Pennebaker and colleagues on narrative and health.
• The essay focuses primarily on physical health benefits of writing about traumatic or difficult experiences.
• The work summarized includes studies carried out by researchers around the world.
• The article was published in 2000 in the journal Literature and Medicine (19(1):3–18).

Abstract

Pennebaker summarizes and highlights the work he and his colleagues from around the world have done over more than ten years in their studies of the health-promoting qualities of writing. His essay focuses primarily on the physical health benefits of writing about traumatic or difficult experience.

Topics

Art Therapy and Mental Health Mental Health via Writing Pain Management and Placebo Effect

Categories

Psychology Social Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Aesthetics Art Engineering Health benefits History Literature Mechanical engineering Medicine Mental health Narrative Physical health Political science Psychology Psychotherapist Public relations Sociology Traditional medicine Work (physics)