WRITING about your feelings, a practice long embraced by teenagers and folk singers, is now attracting attention as a path to good health. And a recent study suggests that reflecting on your emotions could help you get over a breakup. But, one of its authors says, journaling can have its downsides.

写下自己的感想，这种长期被青少年和民谣歌手所采纳的做法，目前正作为一种保持健康的途径，吸引着人们的注意力。最近的一项研究表明，反思自己的情绪能帮你渡过分手时期。但是，论文的一名作者称，记日记可能会产生消极影响。

Is structured self-reflection, as some suggest, a healthy tuneup for the heart and head — or can it make hurt feelings worse?

有人建议进行有条理的自我反思，但这样做会让身心得到健康的调整——还是会让受伤害的感觉更加强烈？

For a study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, Grace M. Larson, a graduate student at Northwestern University, and David A. Sbarra, a psychology¹ professor at the University of Arizona, looked at self-reflection through a speaking exercise. They recruited 210 young people (they ranged in age from 17 to 29) who had recently broken up with their partners, and then split this brokenhearted sample into two groups.

美国西北大学(Northwestern University)的研究生格雷斯·M·拉尔森(Grace M. Larson)和亚利桑那大学(University of Arizona)的心理学教授戴维·A·斯巴拉(David A. Sbarra)在《社会心理与人格科学》(Social Psychological and Personality Science)期刊上发表了一篇论文，为此，他们通过自述对自我反思进行了研究。他们招募了210名最近与伴侣分手的年轻人（年龄从17岁到29岁不等），然后把这些极度伤心的研究对象分成两组。

One filled out a questionnaire on how they were feeling, then completed a four-minute assignment in which they were asked to talk into a recording² device, free-associating in response to questions like, “When did you first realize you and your partner were headed toward breaking up?” This group repeated the same exercise three, six and nine weeks later.

其中一组需要填写关于个人感受的调查问卷，然后再对着一台录音设备讲话4分钟，对于“你从什么时候开始意识到自己和伴侣即将分手”等问题，他们可以自由联想。这组人在3周、6周和9周之后，重复了同样的任务。

The second group filled out the questionnaire at the beginning and the end of the nine-week study period (they did the speaking exercise only once, after filling out their final questionnaires).

第二组则在最初和为期9周的研究即将结束时填写了调查问卷（他们只在填完最后的调查问卷后，做过一次自述）。

Ms. Larson and Dr. Sbarra found that the breakup sufferers in the first group experienced greater improvements in “self-concept clarity” than those in the second. Dr. Sbarra defines self-concept clarity as “the degree to which you understand yourself as a person.” He and Ms. Larson measured it by asking subjects how much they agreed with statements like “I do not feel like myself anymore” or “I have regained³ my identity.” Much of our understanding of ourselves can be bound up in our relationships with our partners, Dr. Sbarra explained — and if we break up, it can be hard to answer questions like “Who am I?” or “Who are my friends?” or “How should I spend my time?” The speaking exercise helped people, he explained, because “it improved their sense of self independent of their former partner.”

拉尔森和斯巴拉发现，与第二组因为分手而备受折磨的人相比，第一组人在“自我概念清晰性”方面有更大的改善。根据斯巴拉的定义，自我概念清晰性指的是“人对自身存在的理解程度”。他和拉尔森通过询问研究对象对一些观点的认可程度，对这一点进行了评测。这些观点包括“我觉得自己已经不像自己了”和“我已经找回了自我”等等。斯巴拉解释道，我们对自身的理解在很大程度上可能都与我们和伴侣的关系紧密相关，所以一旦分手，像“我是谁”、“我的朋友都有哪些”或者“我应该如何打发时间”这样的问题，就往往会变得难以回答。他解释说，自述能帮助人们，因为“它可以帮人们提高脱离于前情侣的自立感”。

That improved sense of self, in turn, led to reductions in loneliness and “emotional intrusion.” As for why the exercise worked, Dr. Sbarra has a few theories. “There is a degree of habituation that takes place as you are repeatedly thinking and talking about the process” of a breakup, he said. “You defang it a little bit.” And, he added, hearing yourself say something may prove revelatory. He imagines a subject’s internal monologue⁴: “I didn’t know I seemed to be getting better until I said I seemed to be getting better. I must be getting better.”

这种经过提高的自我意识，反过来又能减少孤独感和“情绪入侵”。至于自述为什么会起作用，斯巴拉有几个推测。“随着你反复思考和谈论分手过程，就会产生一定程度的习惯化，”他说。“这样会削弱它的影响力。”他还说，听自己讲述一些内容，可能会具有启发性。他想象研究对象的内心独白：“直到我说出自己似乎好些了，才知道我似乎真的已经好些了。我一定要好起来。”

For people going through breakups without the benefit of psychology researchers to record their thoughts, Dr. Sbarra says the study offers some insights. Getting back your sense of self after a breakup, he argued, is crucial: “You really need to figure out a way to pull yourself back together and to try to get some reorganization in terms of who you are, what you do, how you spend your time.” You may not need a recording device to do that — Dr. Sbarra believes that you might also be able to rebuild your self-concept by writing, “in a stream-of-consciousness way, how you’re feeling about things.”

斯巴拉说，对于那些在分手后没有心理学研究人员帮他们记录想法的人，这项研究提供了一些启发。他认为，在分手后找回自我意识至关重要：“你真的需要找到一种找回自我的方式，试着对你是谁，你要做什么，你应该如何打发时间等问题进行重组。”做到这一点，你或许并不需要录音设备——斯巴拉认为你或许也能通过写作来重塑自我概念，“以一种意识流的方式来书写你对事物的感觉”。

OTHER researchers see benefits from self-reflective writing beyond soothing⁵ post-breakup pain — and the practice is drawing media attention, too. At the news website Mic, Rachel Grate cites research by a team from New Zealand showing that writing exercises may aid wound healing. She also quotes the psychologist James W. Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin: “When people are given the opportunity to write about emotional upheavals⁶, they often experience improved health.”

还有一些研究人员发现，进行反思式写作除了可以缓解分手后的痛苦，还有其他好处，这种做法也获得了媒体关注。在新闻网站Mic上，拉赫尔·格拉特(Rachel Grate)提到了一个新西兰团队的研究项目，该研究说明写作联系可能有助于创伤修复。她还引用德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校(University of Texas at Austin)心理学家詹姆斯·W·佩内贝克(James W. Pennebaker)的话称，“当人们有机会记录自己的情绪波动时，他们的健康状况通常会有所改善。”

According to James Hamblin at The Atlantic, a 2012 study found that writing improved quality of life for breast cancer patients. Laura I. Miller⁷ at the website Bustle⁸ offers 12 reasons we should all resolve to write more in 2015. And “if writing about the difficult parts of your life were a drug,” writes Drake Baer at Business Insider, “it would be making bank for some faceless pharmaceutical⁹ company.”

詹姆斯·汉布林(James Hamblin)在《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)杂志发表文章称，2012年的一项研究发现，写作的做法提高了乳腺癌患者的生活质量。劳拉·I·米勒(Laura I. Miller)在Bustle网站撰文，列出了我们在2015年应该决心记录更多的12个理由。“如果记录生活中的艰难时刻的做法是一种药物，”德雷克·贝尔(Drake Baer)在商业内幕(Business Insider)网站上写道，“一些不知名的制药公司就可以一夜暴富了。”

But if it were a drug, it might be one with a maximum recommended dosage — and warnings for certain patients. In another study, Dr. Sbarra found that divorced people assigned to do expressive¹⁰ writing exercises — essentially¹¹, exercises wherein they reflected on their feelings — showed no greater improvement in measures of emotional well-being¹² than those asked to write, without emotion, about what they did during the day. And subjects who tended to ruminate¹³ on their situation actually did better if they were assigned to the emotion-free writing.

但如果这是一种药物，它可能会设有最大推荐剂量——以及针对某些病人的警告。在另一项研究中，斯巴拉发现，与那些没有情绪的、被要求记录一天当中的所作所为的人相比，被指派做表达性写作练习的——基本上是记录对自己的感觉的反思——离婚人士并没有获得更大程度的改善。当那些倾向于反思自身情况的人被指派进行无情绪写作时，他们实际上做得更好。

The prompts in the expressive writing study were more involved than those in the speaking-exercise one — instead of responding to simple questions, participants were asked to “really delve¹⁴ into your deepest emotions and thoughts” or to “work toward creating a coherent story and narrative¹⁵, with yourself as the storyteller.”

表达性写作研究中的提示比自述研究的提示更为深入。它要求参与者“真正探索自己最深层的感受与想法”或“自己作为叙述者，努力创作一个连贯的故事”，而不仅限于回答简单的问题。

“I think the expressive writing intervention¹⁶ at times can be too heavy-handed,” said Dr. Sbarra. “It can be too directive without allowing people’s natural coping tendencies to do what they’ve done over the course of evolutionary¹⁷ history.” And for some people, reflecting too much on their feelings can make things worse. “That’s the real danger of our journaling culture,” he added — diary writing isn’t “one size fits all.”

“我觉得表达性写作这种干预手段有时会力度过大，”斯巴拉说。“如果不允许人采用自然的应对机制，从事他们在演化过程中发展出来的惯用做法，那么这种手段就会指令性过强。”对于一些人来说，过度反思自己的感受会让情况变得更糟。“这是日记文化真正的危险所在，”他还表示——写日记的做法“并不适用于所有人”。

For many, the key may turn out to be some self-reflection, but not too much: writing about your feelings, “but then not necessarily mulling over it or doing any more. Just write it, talk about it, leave it, do it again.”

对于很多人而言，秘诀可能是一定程度上的自我反思，可是不要过多：记录自己的感受，“但不一定要思前想后或做更多的事情。就把它记录下来，聊一聊，然后遗忘，再来一遍”。

“There’s a really delicate balance between avoiding and getting overinvolved for every stressful event,” Dr. Sbarra explained, “and so you touch on it, you think about it, you put it out there, you reflect, and then you sort of create some distance.”

“实际上，对于每一个承受压力的情境，在避免过分投入和过分投入之间存在微妙的平衡，”斯巴拉解释称，“你提到这种情绪，你去思考它，把事实摆在那儿，反思，然后就在某种程度上拉开了一些距离。”

So if you ever get a prescription¹⁸ for writing, it might read: Spend a little time with your diary — and then go for a walk.

因此，如果你得到了一张有关写作的处方，它可能是这么写的：花一点时间写日记，然后出去走走。