Free Association Writing

I tell everyone to journal. I mean everyone. Not just at my private practice but also family, friends, colleagues, you name it. Everyone.

And I’m not talking about “dear diary” journaling. I mean free association writing.

Free association writing is the act of sitting down for 5-10 minutes¹ and simply writing whatever comes to mind. Not worrying about punctuation, spelling, capitalization, format, not worrying about anything. Just writing².

The act of allowing your subconscious mind to get out for some fresh air and bring your attention some of the issues you have been burying away.

If you find yourself sitting down for your first free writing session and you are facing a blank piece of paper (or a blank screen) and are stuck, simply start writing how you are stuck. Meander about on how you are stuck.

And example of starting while being stuck could be:

Im stuck, I have no idea what I should be writing or why I am even doing this but I know I need to start writing out my thoughts to get to a deeper level of what is holding me back in order to really start understanding how I can start working through this because I don’t want it to be like this anymore. I am sick of each day feeling like I’m not getting anything accomplished since I know I am striving to…

You get the picture. After a couple sentences of rambling, you will usually begin touching on some of the issues you would like to discuss.

When I practice this modality of journaling I use my computer to capture my thoughts, because I’m a faster typer than a longhand writer. Also, I use a password protected notes app³ so I’m sure I can be as honest and raw with myself as possible without worrying about subconsciously censoring myself over worry the note may fall into someone’s hands.

(For those of you who want to do this by hand, I suggest having a shredder near and shredding the journal entry when you’re done. Again, this isn’t normal journaling, this is dig into your shadow a bit to find the things you really need to address. Perfectly bound notebooks are amazing for some journaling and should be kept, but not free association writing.)

When I need a new entry, I simply open the Notes app, open my Free Association note and at the top, I add the current date. I then do my free association writing which pushes all the past entries down.

Here’s a sample of an entry if I were adding some writing on February 2:

February 02, 2021

January 31, 2021
This is where my free association writing goes. You didn’t think I was going to give you a glimpse into my subconscious were you?

January 28, 2021
Nope, still just blank filler and not anything of interest…

Obviously, my journal entries are much longer than these examples, but you get the gist.

This way I can go through all my free association writing looking for themes, looking for things I’m still stuck on and looking for my victories. I usually read through my recent journal entries monthly and my ALL of my journal entries on a bi-yearly basis. You can’t imagine how many issues continuously pop up over the many years that I haven’t successfully conquered⁴.

If writing and typing aren’t your thing you can also try using an audio app on your phone. Often times recording yourself as you free associate for 5-10 minutes about a subject and then listening back to yourself is highly therapeutic in itself.

Either way you decide to free associate, it will allow you to work out your issues internally before going to your therapist. Most of the time it’s extremely beneficial to explore and process your issues first before you start talking about it to another person.