A large body of experimental evidence in the empirical sciences shows that writing about life experiences can be beneficial for mental and physical health. While empirical data regarding the health benefits of writing interventions have been collected in numerous studies in psychology and biomedicine, this literature has remained almost entirely disconnected from scholarship in the humanities and cognitive neuropsychology. In this paper, I review the literature from psychological and biomedical writing interventions, connect these findings to views from philosophy, cognitive neuropsychology and narratology and argue that examining established regularities in how narratives are structured can shed further light on the psychological processes engaged during writing interventions. In particular, I argue that the narratological concept of conflict can be applied to resolve patterns of seemingly conflicting empirical findings in psychological studies. More generally, I propose that an interdisciplinary perspective can provide a broader theoretical basis for understanding the psychological processes underlying the health benefits of autobiographical writing and provide directions for future research in psychology and biomedicine.

实证科学中的大量实验证据表明，写生活经历对身心健康有益。虽然在心理学和生物医学领域的众多研究中收集了关于写作干预对健康益处的经验数据，但这些文献几乎与人文学科和认知神经心理学的学术研究完全脱节。在本文中，我回顾了心理学和生物医学写作干预的文献，将这些发现与哲学、认知神经心理学和叙事学的观点联系起来，并认为检查叙事结构的既定规律可以进一步阐明写作干预过程中的心理过程. 特别是，我认为，冲突的叙事学概念可用于解决心理学研究中看似相互矛盾的经验发现的模式。更一般地说，我认为跨学科的观点可以为理解自传写作对健康有益的心理过程提供更广泛的理论基础，并为未来的心理学和生物医学研究提供方向。