---
title: Self-Help
description: Series of articles and discussions that support and guide you to help yourself heal and prosper.
canonical_url: https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/self-help/page-24
language: en-GB
date: 2012-09-11T05:35:08Z
notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/self-help/page-24.
markdown-tokens: 389
---

> **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/self-help/page-24. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content.
> **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above.


![opening package](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/opening_package.jpg)  
Eating disorder recovery advances more quickly if you combine journal writing with your psychotherapy. You can gain even more value from your journal by using an "unpacking" technique.

#### Recovery Value of Your Journal

Writing about your feelings and thoughts, as well as your daily activities, can give you more stability in emotionally turbulent times.

It also helps you discover some hidden underlying causes and themes to your bulimia, anorexia, binge eating or compulsive eating.

You gain value, insight, and sometimes vital revelations when you read your journal entries two months after you've written them. The time-lapse gives you enough time and distance to understand and see through your words to a deeper personal meaning than you could when you originally wrote. You can make connections that you couldn't see before.