For the person grieving

Does writing about grief actually help? Researchers measured it.

A review of thirteen trials found a small effect from expressive writing for grief, with larger effects in studies using more sessions.

By Emily J. Pearson · July 1, 2026

Everyone tells a grieving person to write it down. Almost nobody says what happens if you do.

And maybe you tried. You wrote one page in January, hated it, read it back, and shut the drawer. If that’s you, one attempt does not tell you how every form of expressive writing would feel, and it does not mean you failed.

That research exists now, which is the news. For years the write-it-down advice floated around on vibes, handed out by well-meaning people who had never checked whether it worked. Then a team of researchers went and checked, properly, and what they found is worth a few minutes of your time, because it explains both why your one page did nothing and what would have to change for the writing to start earning its keep.

What did the thirteen trials actually find?

The 2025 review, published in Research on Social Work Practice, combined results from 13 randomized controlled trials (Yao and colleagues). That gives a broader view than any single trial, but the conclusion still depends on the quality and differences of the studies included.

The answer: writing helped. And the honest size of that help is… small.

That word matters, so let’s not dress it up. The pooled effect on grief was small. Real and measurable across the combined results, and small. Anyone who tells you journaling will transform your grief is selling something. What the evidence supports is more modest, and easier to believe: it helps a little.

Sit with how unusual that sentence is for a moment. Most grief advice comes with no measurement attached at all. This is a rare case where somebody counted, and the count came back positive. Small, but positive. If you were hoping for a miracle, this isn’t one. If you were suspecting the whole journaling thing was a scented-candle industry with no substance behind it, that turns out to be wrong too. The truth landed in the unglamorous middle: a modest effect in the combined results.

Why does one journaling session feel useless?

One pattern in the review was that studies with more writing sessions reported larger effects. That does not prove that more sessions will help every person, but it does mean one attempt is not a fair test of every form of expressive writing.

If you tried once and felt no benefit, you did not fail. It may not be the right tool for you, or it may be something you want to try again in a smaller way. Either choice is allowed.

How often should you write?

Taken together, the review points towards repeated sessions rather than treating one intense session as the only test. It does not say that everyone should write or that one schedule fits everyone.

That leaves room for preference. A few lines may feel manageable, but a notes app, a guided page or no writing at all can also be the right choice on a given day.

What if the blank page defeats you?

A blank page asks you what you want to say, and you may not have an answer. It is worth being honest that “just write regularly” is easy to say and can be hard to start.

A guided journal can give you a question to start with. You can return to it without having to write everything in one evening. There are several built this way, including Whenever You’re Ready, the journal this site’s author wrote.

You do not need a particular tool. A notes app works, and so does the back of an envelope. If you want to try again, you can make the next attempt as small as you need.

And if you wrote one page and stopped, nothing went wrong. You can leave it there or return to it later.

Sources

• Yao and colleagues, “Expressive Writing for Grief: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials”, Research on Social Work Practice (2025).