When students learn a second language (L2), their cognition and perceptions may be influenced by various social and environmental factors at the same time (Csizér, 2019). Understanding the underlying constructs of the L2 Motivational Self-System (L2MSS) (Dörnyei, 2005) becomes vital for language learners and teachers alike, as it plays a key role in directing the success or failure of the language learning process in the language. Dörnyei's L2MSS is composed of three constructs that direct learners’ behaviour: the ideal L2 self, the ought-to L2 self, and the L2 learning experience. This literature review focuses on the L2MSS in English writing through the process writing approach — one of the writing approaches theorized by Hyland (2021) — which centres on the writer and describes writing in terms of the processes used to create texts, and which emphasizes the personal creativity of the individual writer, the cognitive processes of writing and the writer’s immediate context.