Writing about Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process

For the past decade, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that when individuals wnte about emotional experiences, significant physical and mental health improvements follow The basic paradigm and findings are summarized along with some boundary conditions Although a reduction tn inhibition may contribute to the disclosure phenomenon changes in basic cognitive and linguistic processes during writing predict better health Implications for theory and treatment are discussed Virtually all forms of psychotherapy—from psychoanalysis to behavioral and cognitive therapies—have been shown to reduce distress and to promote physical and mental well-being (Mumford, Schlesinger, & Glass, 1983, Smith, Glass, & Miller, 1980) A process common to most therapies is labeling the problem and discussing its causes and consequences Further, participating in therapy presupposes that the individual acknowledges the existence of a problem and openly discusses It with another person As discussed in this article, the mere act of disclosure is a powerful therapeutic agent that may account for a substantial percentage of the vanance m the healing process PARAMETERS OF WRITING AND TALKING ASSOCIATED WITH HEALTH IMPROVEMENTS Over the past decade, several laboratories have been explonng the value of writing or talking about emotional experiences Confronting deeply personal issues has been found to promote physical health, subjective well-being, and selected adaptive behaviors In this section, the general findings of the disclosure paradigm are discussed Whereas individuals have been asked to disclose personal expenences through talking in a few studies, most studies involve wnting The Basic Wnting Paradigm The standard laboratory wnting technique has involved randomly .signing each participant to one of two or more groups All wnting groups are asked to wnte about assigned topics for 3 to 5 consecutive days, 15 to 30 mm each day Wnting is generally done m the laboy with no feedback given Participants assigned to the control conditions are typically asked to wnte about superficial topics, such as how they use their time The standard instructions for those assigned to the expenmental group are a vanation on the following the next 3 days, I would like for you to wnte about your very deepest thoughts and feeling about an extremely important emoUonal issue that has affected you and your life In your wnting I d like you to really let go and explore your very deepest emoUons and thoughts You might ue your topic to Address correspondence to James W Pennebaker Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275 e-mail pennebak® your relationships with others including parents lovers fnends, or relatives, to your past your present or your future or to who you have been, who you would like to be or who you are now You may wnte about the same general issues or expenences on all days of wnung or on different topics each day All of your wnting will be completely confidential Don't worry about spelling, sentence structure, or grammar The only rule is that once you begin wnting, continue to do so until your time is up The writing paradigm is exceptionally powerful Paiticipantsfrom children to the elderly, from honor students to maximun secunty pnsoners—disclose a remarkable range and depth of traumatic expenences Lost loves, deaths, incidents of sexual and physical abuse, and tragic failures are common themes in all of the studiei nothing else, the paradigm demonstrates that when individuals are given the opportunity to disclose deeply personal aspects of their lives, they readily do so Even though a large number of participants report crying or being deeply upset by the expenence, the overwhelming majonty report that the wnting expenence was valuable and meaningful in their lives EfTects of Disclosure on Outcome Measures Researchers have relied on a vanety of physical and mental health measures to evaluate the effect of wntmg As depicted in Table 1, wnting or talking about emotional expenences, relative to wnting about superficial control topics, has been found to be associated w significant drops in physician visits from before to after wnting among relatively healthy samples Wnting or talking about emotional topics has also been found to have beneficial influences on lmm function, including t-helper cell growth (using a blastogenesis procedure with the mitogen phytohemagglutmui), antibody response t Epstein-Barr virus, and antibody response to hepatitis B vaccination; Disclosure also has produced short-term changes in autonomic activ lty (e g , lowered heart rate and electrodermal activity) and muscula activity (l e , reduced phasic comigator acUvity) Self-reports also suggest that wntmg about upsetting expenences, although painful in the days of wntmg, produces long-term lmproveis in mood and indicators of well-being compared with wnting about control topics Although a number of studies have failed to find lstent effects on mood or self-reported distress, Smyth's (1996) It meta-analysis on wntten-disclosure studies indicates that, li general, wnting about emotional topics is associated with significant reductions in distress Behavioral changes have also been found Students who wnte about emotional topics show improvements in grades m the months following the study Senior professionals who have been laid off from their jobs get new jobs more quickly af^er wnting Consistent with the direct health measures, university staff members who wnte about emotional topics are subsequently absent from their work at lower than control participants Interestingly, relatively few reliable changes emerge using self-reports of health-related behaviors That is Copynght © 1997 Amencan Psychological Society VOL 8, NO 3, MAY 1997 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE