Reviewed by Hilary Hawkes for Readers' Favorite

Christopher Kalford’s Therapy Through Journaling: Be Your Own Savor is a useful and sensible guide for anyone thinking about using journal writing to help themselves through a difficult phase in life or as a means of self-discovery. The book focuses on the positive benefits of writing down thoughts and feelings on a regular basis. This is helpful for many reasons: it is a way to vent or unwind in a safe way, it can give a feeling of validation or being understood, it can enable us to learn from our past and see patterns in behavior. Kalford explains the psychology behind journaling and the different approaches to writing down our innermost thoughts as a means to achieve and maintain good mental health and recovery from negative depressive states. A useful bibliography and information about free resources by the author are included.

Therapy Through Journaling: Be Your Own Savor is a concisely written book that is an excellent introduction to the benefits of journaling as a form of therapy or self-help. Divided into short chapters, it is the type of book to read and keep for dipping into again from time to time. Christopher Kalford makes an excellent case for the benefits of keeping a regular journal and draws out his reasons with quotes and examples. I liked the emphasis on self-forgiveness and the 3:1 positivity to negativity technique: a good approach that is backed by current psychology that sees ongoing behaviors as those which we reinforce ourselves.

There is much sensible advice in this little book about how to take care of our own mental health, and using journaling as a way of taking small steps towards change or achieving a healthier mind set. As an advocate of writing gratitude journals, I was delighted to read the section on this type of journal writing too and how, in order to maintain authenticity, that may differ to other journal writing types. A well thought out, easy-to-read and useful book with positive and very doable ideas.