The write-up

Here is the method. Each event gets gone through once, properly, on paper. I call it the write-up. It takes between twenty minutes and an hour. It replaces the replays in the sense that it does the jobs they were pretending to do.

I've put it on paper for two reasons. One is chapter 7, where a specific plan stopped the mind from raising an open item. The other is the research on writing. Joanne Frattaroli pooled 146 randomised studies in which people wrote about personal and meaningful matters, often upsetting ones, over a few short sessions. Overall it helped, across a range of health and psychological outcomes. I should tell you that the average effect was small. It's a modest help and I'm not offering it as a cure. But it's cheap, and it gives you something a replay never does, which is a finished object.

Do one event per sitting. Start with a small one. Use paper or a document that you'll keep. It has five headings.

What happened. Tell it as in chapter 11. Use the third person and the past tense, and start a little before the event. Be concrete. Say who was there, what was said and what was done, in order. Keep to the facts as a fair witness would give them. Don't write about what kind of person this makes you. Include what you did wrong, plainly, without softening it and without piling on. A few paragraphs is plenty.

What they knew then. This is chapter 4. List what the person in the story knew and didn't know at the time. Include their state, whether they were tired, frightened, young or under pressure. Include the facts that pointed the wrong way. You're making the case a fair-minded friend would make. You're not writing excuses.

What it cost, and to whom. Be honest in both directions. Don't wave away real harm, and don't inflate it. "She had an uncomfortable ten seconds on a hard day" is about right for the photocopier. For larger events this section will be longer and sadder, and it should be. It's where the regret from chapter 10 gets written down.

The lesson. Write one or two sentences that you could act on, with a plan attached in the form "when this, then that". "When I speak to someone who's grieving, then I'll say I'm sorry and ask how they are, and leave it there." If you can't find a lesson, because the decision was reasonable and turned out badly, then write that. "There's no lesson here beyond the fact that reasonable decisions sometimes go wrong."

What's left to do. This is chapter 9. Write either a specific act with a date, or the word "Nothing", with your reason. "Nothing. She left years ago, the harm was small, and contacting her now would be for my sake and not hers."

Then write a last line. "Written up on the 14th of June." Put the date on it and put it away somewhere you could find it.

Here's what the last three sections might look like for the photocopier, as an example.

"What it cost. She had an awkward moment on her first day back, one of several that week, I'd guess. I've had eleven years of wincing, which is far more than the event was worth. I've also avoided a few bereaved people since then when I could have been kind, and I regret that more than the remark.

"The lesson. When someone's grieving, then I say I'm sorry, ask how they're doing, and stop. And when someone at work has had bad news, I go and find them, because avoiding them was the worse mistake.

"What's left. Nothing, as far as she's concerned. But there's a man in accounts whose wife is ill, and I've been dodging him. I'll speak to him this week.

"Written up on the 14th of June."

The write-up found something the replays never did. The second lesson, about avoiding people, turned up once the event was looked at from outside and in the round. Four hundred replays missed it, because they were all spent staring at her face.

Here are a few practical points.

The write-up may be uncomfortable while you do it, and for a large event it may be upsetting. That's different from a replay. It's the discomfort of looking at the whole of something once, and it has an end. If you find yourself overwhelmed and unable to keep the observer's distance, stop. That's a sign the event may need more than a book, and working through it with a therapist would be a sensible choice.

Don't polish it. It's a record and nobody's going to mark it. When you've filled in the five headings and written the date, you're done.

Don't do them all at once. One a week is plenty. They're more tiring than they look.

Once it's written, there's one rule. The write-up is reopened only if new information arrives. If your colleague rings after eleven years, or you learn something about the flat sale that you never knew, take it out and add to it. Another replay isn't new information. It's the old material again, and the old material has been dealt with.