A method of compensating for the distortion in a recording layer of a reversible thermosensitive recording medium, for which transparency of the recording layer is changeable, depending upon the temperature thereof, and the recording layer is capable of forming images and erasing the images reversibly. The distortion in the recording layer is caused by the repeated image formation by image formation means and/or image erasure by image erasing means. In this method, stress is applied to the recording layer before and/or after image formation by the movement of the recording medium relative to the image formation means, in a direction different from the direction of the application of stress in the course of a previous image formation or image erasure. Instead of the stress, thermal energy can be employed for compensating for the distortion in the recording layer.