The Therapeutic Use of Journaling with Adolescents

In this article Allison Utley and Yvonne Garza explain the emotional benefits that journaling can have on adolescents in a therapeutic setting.  One of the challenges therapist face when counseling adolescents, is the resistance towards the therapeutic process.  Adolescents may be put into therapy against their will, or possess untrusting mental schemes towards adult figures.  Therefore, therapist may find themselves in a position where alternative means are necessary, in order to engage the adolescents in self-expression. 

                 It is suggested that journaling provides this alternative.  The authors present considerable research and literature describing the emotional and mental benefits of such a practice.  For adolescents in particular, journaling allows for internalized thoughts and emotions to manifest out, without the threat of exposure.  As the adolescent begins to understand latent personal expressions, an internal motivation develops, driving them to be active participants in their treatment, regardless of external incentives.  Advocates for journaling as a therapeutic tool claim that the process allows for the client’s internal torment to come forth through their own self-navigation, and as a result, the client feels validated in their suffering.   Once one comes to term with their suppressed trauma, healing can begin, and old wounds can be closed.  Some experts believe, that this healing process is facilitated through the kinesthetic action of writing.  Past trauma effects cognitive, emotional, and physical factors within the psyche, thus writing allows for all three components to be integrated and expressed in safe physical manner leading to a mind-body connection.  Proponents of learning theory and Constructivist theory, suggest that journaling facilitates inner dialog bridging the gap between thoughts, emotions and actions, which results in self-knowledge. 

                   Concluding this article, the authors provide an example of a clinically proven, therapeutic expressive, journal intervention that has shown positive results. Coupled with the exercise the first author Allison Utley shares personal excerpts from her own journal work as an adolescent in therapy.  The example exercise consists of blank parts.  The first component list the materials needed; pen paper, and a variety of crafts such as glue magazines, paint, markers.   Component two, is Activity Preparation, in which the therapist explains the activity to the client. Included in this is a script that can be read verbatim or altered to fit desired preferences.  Component three is Processing, which asses the client’s readiness for the next steps. Processing includes ten simple prompts, such as if “You had the choice of two mediums: the journal or the art materials. Tell me about your choice for this reflection.”.  Component four is Catalyst which includes six different narratives based on childhood, questions, fears, support, sadness and hope. The therapist reads each narrative out loud an allows the client time to process, after which the client then engages in journaling and/or creating a different creative form that is symbolic of their own reflection to the narratives; what was my childhood, what questions do I have, what fears do I poses, what support do I have, what sadness do I have, and what hope do I have.

An examination of the relationship between self-efficacy and stress in adolescents: the role of gender and self-esteem

                          In this article McKay, Dempster, & Byrne, provide a brief literary review on existing knowledge, regarding the relationship between adolescent alcohol use, self-efficacy and stress.   This is then followed by an in-depth study addressing this multi-factorial, triadic relationship. It is theorized that the lower an adolescent self-efficacy the less control they feel over stressful life events, and consequently, turn to alcohol use as a means to avoid the emotional turmoil that accompanies stress.  McKay, Dempster, and Byrne provide Bandura’s definitions and explanation for self-efficacy.  Self-efficacy was defined as a cognitive construct, by which internal control over life events (especially stressful ones), motivates behavior to either seek action, or if self-efficacy is low, avoid problem solving actions.  McKay, Dempster, and Byrne suggest that self-efficacy is a multi-dimensional construct, and can have varying degrees depending on the domain it represents.  For instance, one can feel a high amount of control over their ability to handle relationship problems (high emotional self-efficay) however, feels no control over their ability to handle academic failure (low academic self-efficay).  Academic, social and self-regulatory efficacy have seen the most research attention, and collectively these three are thought to have significant positive associations over prosocial behavior, academic drive and goal setting, career paths, and peer liking.  While at the same time a negative associated exist between self-efficacy and depression, shyness, internalizing problems, and destructive externalization to emotional stress.  Moreover, McKay, Dempster, and Byrne suggest that these researcher findings should be implemented as a critical intervention for reducing emotional and physical withdrawal, and enhancing internal, cognitive problem-solving approaches. Furthermore, stating that there’s considerable discrepancies in current research because of the role of gender on self-efficacy, self-worth and stress; because adolescent stress nor self-efficay is not monolithic; and because self-esteem in the adolescence population has been shown to be both an independent factor in dysfunctional health, while at the same time acting as a mediator of adolescent health.

                 To address these discrepancies, McKay, Dempster, and Byrne developed a study that used adolescent alcohol abuse as a gauge of health behavior and sought to correlate the relationship nature of alcohol use, stress, and the moderating effects of self-efficacy.  The second component to the study was to bring to light the possible influence that self-esteem and gender have on efficacy and stress.  Twenty-seven high schools were contacted and a sample population of 610 participants aged eleven to sixteen were recruited for the study. Instruments manifested as questionnaires that each participant filled out in the same controlled setting; The Adolescent Stress Questionnaire, The Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Children, The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and The Adolescent Alcohol Involvement Scale. Two-tailed analyses were piloted using SPSS v.20. Pearson’s correlations software and separate regression analyses were implemented for each variable associated with self-efficay. 

              Results indicated that neither gender nor self-esteem could be conducted as a mediating factor for self-efficay and adolescent stress.  However, regression results indicated clear emotional and cognitive differences based on gender, such that moderated the relationship between adolescent stress and self-efficacy females had heightened mean scores on seven out of ten stress domains and also had meaningfully lower scores on self-esteem, and social self-efficacy.  McKay, Dempster, and Byrne found other curious factors that need further investigation, such as the relationship between self-esteem and reported levels of peer pressure, being that adolescent self-efficacy constructs are built off of the evaluations from their peers. Findings such as this one are suggested for future research.    

Self-Concept Clarity Across Adolescence: Longitudinal Associations With Open Communication With Parents  and Internalizing Symptoms

                As children transition into adolescence the relationship and communication patterns, between child and parent can become challenging, due to an increased drive for the adolescent to develop self-autonomy.  However, Van Dijk, Keijsers Hawk, Hale, and Meeus suggest that parents should work to overcome these hurdles because parent-child-communication, is the birth place for adolescent to build self-concept clarity and healthy autonomy.  Self-concept clarity represents the stability of how frequently an individual perceives themselves.  This is not to be confused with self-concept, which is the content comprising one’s self-concept, while self-concept clarity is the is the actual structure of the self-concept.  A positive relationship has been identified between self-concept clarity and varied adjustment domains, such that emotional adjustment can be singularly predicted, by self-concept clarity, regardless of the content within such self-concept. Prior research indicated that those with low self-concept clarity, were more vulnerable to the influence of external causes, however those with a high self-concept clarity were found to be more flexible responding to changes in social environment, and less affected, by negative external cues, that were inconsistent with the content within their self-concept. Van Dijk, Keijsers Hawk, Hale, and Meeus theorize that self-concept clarity is promoted through self-reflective thinking and narrative construction, occurring through social conversations. Theses narratives grow to be stronger and clearer as understanding increases between events occurring in one’s life and their relation to one’s self.  Parental verbal engagement was thought to have significant importance over adolescent’s self-concept clarity development as parents express their expectations, freely listen, and openly communicate. Parents who provide interactions that emulate acceptance, will promote skill and confidence building, in addition to fostering a more in depth understanding of self, for their adolescent. Creating a home environment that encourages positive self-expression helps to safe guard against an adolescent’s tendency to internalize problems. Internalizing problems is a reaction to the increased regularity of an adolescent thinking of one’s self in the scopes of their life, which can manifest into an involuntary emotional damaging threat process within cognition.  Concern should be given to this tendency because internalization has been shown to be a strong predictor of anxiety, social anxiety and depression.

            Based off of these previous findings Keijsers Hawk, Hale, and Meeus conducted a longitude study over a four-year period in which they examined the link between adolescents’ communication with parents, self-concept clarity, and internalizing problems. There were 323 families that were observed over this time period.  Observations and self- measurements were conducted at the one, two and three year marks. 

              Results confirmed past research findings suggesting that positive associations exist between open communication and self-concept clarity. However, over the span of time, this positive association was only identified during middle adolescence, which was defined as fourteen to fifteen years old.  The second finding was the concurrent relationship between anxiety and depression symptomology and self-concept; with low self-concept clarity predicting high levels of anxiety and depression.  Counter intuitive to Keijsers Hawk, Hale, and Meeus original predication, was that self-concept clarity was not a mediator in longitudinal links between communication and internalizing problems.