ArticlePDF Available

Writing about the Perceived Benefits of Traumatic Events: Implications for Physical Health

Authors:
Laura A King at University of Missouri
Laura A King
Kathi Miner at Saudi Aramco
Kathi Miner
Download full-text PDF
Read full-text
Download citation

Abstract

Research by Pennebaker and his colleagues supports the healing power of writing about traumatic events. This study explored the importance of writing about the perceived benefits of traumatic events as a factor in this process. The study included 118 participants who were randomly assigned to write about one of four topics in a 2 (writing about perceived benefits vs. not writing about perceived benefits)×2 (writing about trauma vs. not writing about trauma) factorial design. Participants also completed questionnaire measures of subjective well-being and released health center information for the year. Participants who wrote only about trauma or perceived benefits showed significantly fewer health center visits for illness 3 months after writing. In addition, 5 months after writing, the trauma-only and perceived-benefits-only groups maintained a difference from the control group. These results suggest that writing about perceived benefits from traumatic events may provide a less upsetting but effective way to benefit from writing.
Content uploaded by Laura A King
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Laura A King on Aug 14, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
... Early positive writing studies followed a typical WED protocol, except the emotive content was altered to positive topics such as writing only about the benefits of a traumatic experience (benefit finding) [7] and one's best possible self (BPS) [8]. Findings showed that these positive writing techniques led to similar health benefits as WED, but without immediate negative emotions. ...
... Benefit finding was described as interventions where participants were encouraged to write about the benefits or positives following a stressful or upsetting experience. Five studies employed this technique with a focus on either the caregiving experience [64,65], a personally identified upsetting or traumatic experience [7,66] and the Covid-19 pandemic [67]. Outcomes were primarily psychological, and few significant benefits were observed. ...
... Reductions in depression were only observed in one study [67]; however this was also no different to controls and three other studies found no significant improvements [64][65][66]. No improvements were found for affect [7], benefit finding, caregiver quality of life [64], or perceived stress [54,67,69]. In terms of physical health outcomes, one study observed fewer health centre visits following benefit finding writing relative to controls [7]. ...
Positive expressive writing interventions, subjective health and wellbeing in non-clinical populations: A systematic review
Article
Full-text available
Positive expressive writing has been increasingly researched over the past two decades due to its potential to serve as a low-intensity psychological self-help intervention. However, studies are heterogeneous in their methodologies and the health and wellbeing outcomes targeted, and it is unclear which outcomes are most reliably benefited by positive writing techniques. This systematic review aimed to determine the optimal conditions under which positive expressive writing interventions benefit subjective health and wellbeing in non-clinical populations. A systematic search was conducted across four databases (Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and ProQuest: APA PsychArticles) identifying peer-reviewed articles written in the English language from 1930 to August 2023. A total of 51 studies were identified and included seven different positive writing techniques: best possible self, positive experiences, gratitude, benefit finding, satisfaction processes, three good things and resource diary. Most consistent benefits were found for wellbeing and positive affect outcomes (e.g., optimism, happiness) whereas less consistent effects were reported for negative affect, psychological health (e.g., stress, anxiety) and physical health outcomes. Best possible self and gratitude interventions revealed most consistent benefits. Several moderators were identified indicating that benefits may depend on individual differences relating to wellbeing, emotional and social factors. While reasonably consistent benefits of positive expressive writing were observed for wellbeing outcomes, the quality of all studies included in the review was assessed to be poor or fair. Thus, it is clear that more rigorous methods, including intention-to-treat analyses and robust reporting of methods and findings are needed. Future work should also aim to replicate the moderation effects reported in the present review, to enable a better understanding of the individual differences which influence the efficacy of positive expressive writing effects.
View
... In der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit expressiven Schreibinterventionen, haben insbesondere Pennebaker und Kollegen (1986) eine Vielzahl an positiven Auswirkungen und Effekten auf die Schreibenden belegen können (nähere Ausführungen hierzu, siehe Abschnitt 3.3.1). Besonders die kurzfristige Verschlechterung des Stimmungsbildes bei der Niederschrift negativer, traumatischer Erlebnisse wurde dabei kritisch betrachtet und in darauf aufbauenden Studien durch andere Schreibinstruktionen modifiziert (Greenberg et al., 1996;King & Miner, 2000). Die Studien konnten dabei ähnliche Ergebnisse erzielen, ohne die Schreibenden negativ zu belasten. ...
View
... In der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit expressiven Schreibinterventionen, haben insbesondere Pennebaker und Kollegen (1986) eine Vielzahl an positiven Auswirkungen und Effekten auf die Schreibenden belegen können (nähere Ausführungen hierzu, siehe Abschnitt 3.3.1). Besonders die kurzfristige Verschlechterung des Stimmungsbildes bei der Niederschrift negativer, traumatischer Erlebnisse wurde dabei kritisch betrachtet und in darauf aufbauenden Studien durch andere Schreibinstruktionen modifiziert (Greenberg et al., 1996;King & Miner, 2000). Die Studien konnten dabei ähnliche Ergebnisse erzielen, ohne die Schreibenden negativ zu belasten. ...
Abschließende Gedanken und Ausblick
Chapter
Full-text available
  • Jun 2024
Zusammenfassung In diesem Kapitel werden abschließende Gedanken zu dieser Arbeit vorgestellt und unter Berücksichtigung der dargestellten Ergebnisse (Kapitel 13) weiterer Forschungsbedarf aufgezeigt und formuliert.
View
... In der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit expressiven Schreibinterventionen, haben insbesondere Pennebaker und Kollegen (1986) eine Vielzahl an positiven Auswirkungen und Effekten auf die Schreibenden belegen können (nähere Ausführungen hierzu, siehe Abschnitt 3.3.1). Besonders die kurzfristige Verschlechterung des Stimmungsbildes bei der Niederschrift negativer, traumatischer Erlebnisse wurde dabei kritisch betrachtet und in darauf aufbauenden Studien durch andere Schreibinstruktionen modifiziert (Greenberg et al., 1996;King & Miner, 2000). Die Studien konnten dabei ähnliche Ergebnisse erzielen, ohne die Schreibenden negativ zu belasten. ...
Fallübergreifende Ergebnisdarstellung
Chapter
Full-text available
  • Jun 2024
Zusammenfassung Nachdem in Abschnitt 12.2 durch individuelle Fallbeschreibungen die jeweiligen Pflegesituationen und -beziehungen eingehend beschrieben wurden, erfolgt nun eine fallübergreifende Ergebnisdarstellung. Dabei werden mit Blick auf die in Kapitel 6 dargestellten Forschungsfragen die induktiv und deduktiv ausgewerteten Analyseergebnisse der Tagebucheinträge sowie der Interviews aufgezeigt und interpretiert. Dabei liegt der Fokus auf der Beschreibung und Wahrnehmung schöner Momente, deren Wirkung auf pflegende Angehörige und Menschen mit Demenz sowie der Bewertung und Reflexion der Tagebuchmethode.
View
... In der wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit expressiven Schreibinterventionen, haben insbesondere Pennebaker und Kollegen (1986) eine Vielzahl an positiven Auswirkungen und Effekten auf die Schreibenden belegen können (nähere Ausführungen hierzu, siehe Abschnitt 3.3.1). Besonders die kurzfristige Verschlechterung des Stimmungsbildes bei der Niederschrift negativer, traumatischer Erlebnisse wurde dabei kritisch betrachtet und in darauf aufbauenden Studien durch andere Schreibinstruktionen modifiziert (Greenberg et al., 1996;King & Miner, 2000). Die Studien konnten dabei ähnliche Ergebnisse erzielen, ohne die Schreibenden negativ zu belasten. ...
Forschungsziel und Forschungsfragen
Chapter
Full-text available
  • Jun 2024
Zusammenfassung Die Sorge für Menschen mit Demenz wird von pflegenden Angehörigen häufig aus einer Belastungsperspektive wahrgenommen. Sinnstiftende und berührende Momente zwischen pflegenden Angehörigen und Menschen mit Demenz werden dabei vielfach nicht mehr bewusst erlebt. Da Aspekte der inneren Bereicherung und Erfüllung aber durchaus erfahren werden können, ergibt sich die Notwendigkeit, ebendiese Momente zwischen pflegenden Angehörigen und Menschen mit Demenz wieder fassbar zu machen.
View
View
View
View
Benefit Finding in Craniofacial Conditions: A Qualitative Analysis of Patient and Parent Perspectives
Article
  • Jan 2025
  • CLEFT PALATE-CRAN J
Objective Craniofacial conditions (CFCs) can be associated with adverse effects on quality of life (QoL). However, few studies have examined perceived benefits related to CFCs. This study described perceived benefits in an international sample of children and adolescents with CFCs and their parents. Design Semistructured qualitative interviews were completed in English or Spanish as part of a larger study. Deductive content analysis described and quantified perceived benefits associated with CFCs. Setting Interviews were during standard visits at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego in the USA and the Hospital Infantil de las Californias in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Participants Patients were ages 7 to 20 years ( n = 32) with CFCs (cleft lip and/or palate, craniosynostosis, microtia, hemifacial microsomia, dermatologic conditions/neurovascular malformations, and trauma-acquired CFC), and parents ( n = 71) had children ages 5 months to 23 years with CFCs. Of the total sample, there were 14 patient-parent dyads. Results A total of 230 benefits were identified. Of the patients (47%) and parents (73%) who identified at least 1 benefit, themes included personal growth (40%), understanding or helping others facing challenges (25%), social relationships (23%), spiritual or religious beliefs (4%), philanthropy (4%), material or external gains (3%), and personal health (1%). Conclusions Patients with CFCs and their parents report multiple positive effects of CFCs on their QoL. These findings indicate that benefit finding is a common experience in this population and may be leveraged by clinicians to help promote positive adjustment to living with a CFC.
View
Ruh Sağlığı Alanında Pozitif Bir Buluşma
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2024
Başa çıkma yollarının geliştirilmesine yol gösterebilecek ve dayanıklılığın arttırılmasına yardımcı olabilecek bakış açıları yaşamda ortaya çıkabilecek olumsuz sonuçları önleme potansiyeline sahiptir. Gelişimsel psikopatoloji ve pozitif psikoloji alanları gelişimsel süreçte fark yaratmayı amaçlayan ve pozitif sonuçların alınmasında etkili olan iki yaklaşımdır. Gelişimsel psikopatoloji, bireylerin uyumlu ve uyumsuz davranışsal örüntülerini gelişimsel bir bakış açısı kullanarak açıklayan bütüncül bir yaklaşımdır. Pozitif psikoloji ise hayatı yaşamaya değer kılan unsurlara odaklanarak, bireylerde büyümeye yol açacak koşulları araştıran bir alandır. Bu gözden geçirme çalışmasında her iki alanın buluşma noktalarına ışık tutularak, ruh sağlığı alanında çalışan uzmanlara bütüncül bir yaklaşımın sağladığı faydaların aktarılması amaçlanmaktadır. Pozitif özelliklere ve önlemeye odaklanan bu iki yaklaşım birlikte kullanılması ruh sağlığı uygulamalarına önemli katkılar sağlayabilir.
View
Expressive Writing Moderates the Relation Between Intrusive Thoughts and Depressive Symptoms
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 1997
The author investigated whether expressive writing enhances emotional adaptation to a stressful event (graduate entrance exams) by reducing event-related intrusive thoughts or by desensitizing people to such thoughts. Participants in the experimental group, who were instructed to write their deepest thoughts and feelings about the exam, exhibited a significant decline in depressive symptoms from 1 month (Time 1) to 3 days (Time 2) before the exam. Participants in the control group, who wrote about a trivial topic, maintained a relatively high level of depressive symptoms over this same period. Expressive writing did not affect the frequency of intrusive thoughts, but it moderated the impact of intrusive thoughts on depressive symptoms. Specifically, intrusive thoughts at Time 1 were positively related to depressive symptoms at Time 2 in the control group and were unrelated to symptoms in the expressive writing group.
View
Expression of Stressful Experiences Through Writing: Effects of a Self-Regulation Manipulation for Pessimists and Optimists
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 1998
This study assessed the effectiveness of a writing task designed to foster self-regulatory coping with stressful experiences to reduce medical clinic visits and to promote adjustment. Students entering college (N = 122) who were classified as optimists or pessimists by using a dispositional optimism measure participated in a self-regulation task (expressing thoughts and feelings about entering college and then formulating coping plans), a disclosure task (expressing thoughts and feelings only), or a control task (writing about trivial topics) for 3 weekly writing sessions. Among optimists, both the self-regulation task and the disclosure task reduced illness-related clinic visits during the following month; among pessimists, only the self-regulation task reduced clinic visits. In general, the self-regulation task beneficially affected mood state and college adjustment whereas the disclosure task increased grade point averages.
View
Written Emotional Expression: Effect Sizes, Outcome Types, and Moderating Variables
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 1998
A research synthesis was conducted to examine the relationship between a written emotional expression task and subsequent health. This writing task was found to lead to significantly improved health outcomes in healthy participants. Health was enhanced in 4 outcome types—reported physical health, psychological well-being, physiological functioning, and general functioning—but health behaviors were not influenced. Writing also increased immediate (pre- to postwriting) distress, which was unrelated to health outcomes. The relation between written emotional expression and health was moderated by a number of variables, including the use of college students as participants, gender, duration of the manipulation, publication status of the study, and specific writing content instructions.
View
Linguistic Predictors of Adaptive Bereavement
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 1997
The words people use in disclosing a trauma were hypothesized to predict improvements in mental and physical health in 2 studies. The first study reanalyzed data from 6 previous experiments in which language variables served as predictors of health. Results from 177 participants in previous writing studies showed that increased use of words associated with insightful and causal thinking was linked to improved physical but not mental health. Higher use of positive relative to negative emotion words was also associated with better health. An empirical measure that was derived from these data correlated with subsequent distress ratings. The second study tested these models on interview transcripts of 30 men who had lost their partners to AIDS. Cognitive change and empirical models predicted postbereavement distress at 1 year. Implications of using computer-based text analyses in the study of narratives are discussed.
View
Emotional Disclosure Through Writing or Speaking Modulates Latent Epstein-Barr Virus Antibody Titers
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 1994
Healthy Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) seropositive undergraduates (N = 57) completed a personality inventory, provided blood samples, and were randomly assigned to write or talk about stressful events, or to write about trivial events, during three weekly 20-min sessions, after which they provided a final blood sample. Individuals assigned to the verbal/stressful condition had significantly lower EBV antibody titers (suggesting better cellular immune control over the latent virus) after the intervention than those in the written/stressful group, who had significantly lower values than those in the written/trivial control group. Subjects assigned to the written/stressful condition expressed more negative emotional words than the verbal/stressful and control groups and more positive emotional words than the verbal/stressful group at each time point. The verbal/stressful group expressed more negative emotional words compared with the control group at baseline. Content analysis indicated that the verbal/stressful group achieved the greatest improvements in cognitive change, self-esteem, and adaptive coping strategies.
View
Disclosure of Traumas and Immune Function: Health Implications for Psychotherapy
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 1988
Can psychotherapy reduce the incidence of health problems? A general model of psychosomatics assumes that inhibiting or holding back one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is associated with long-term stress and disease. Actively confronting upsetting experiences—through writing or talking—is hypothesized to reduce the negative effects of inhibition. Fifty healthy undergraduates were assigned to write about either traumatic experiences or superficial topics for 4 consecutive days. Two measures of cellular immune-system function and health center visits suggested that confronting traumatic experiences was physically beneficial. The implications for psychotherapy as a preventive treatment for health problems are discussed.
View
The Psychophysiology of Confession: Linking Inhibitory and Psychosomatic Processes
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 1987
A theory of inhibition and psychosomatic disease suggests that the failure to confide traumatic events is stressful and associated with long-term health problems. We investigated the short-term autonomic correlates of disclosing personal and traumatic experiences among two samples of healthy undergraduates. In Experiment 1, subjects talked into a tape recorder about extremely stressful events that had occurred in their lives, as well as what they planned to do following the experiment. Skin conductance, blood pressure, and heart rate were continuously measured. Based on judges' ratings of subjects' depth of disclosure, subjects were classified as high or low disclosers. Talking about traumatic events was associated with decreased behavioral inhibition, as measured by lower skin conductance levels among high disclosers. Disclosing traumatic material was also associated with increased cardiovascular activity. In Experiment 2, subjects both talked aloud and thought about a traumatic event and about plans for the day. Half of the subjects were alone in an experimental cubicle and talked into a tape recorder; the remaining subjects talked to a silent “confessor” who sat behind a curtain. Among high disclosers, both talking and thinking about traumatic events produced lower skin conductance levels than did thinking or talking about plans for the day. The presence of a confessor inhibited subjects' talking. Implications for understanding the nature of confession and the development of an inhibitory model for psychosomatic processes are discussed.
View
Confronting a Traumatic Event: Toward an Understanding of Inhibition and Disease
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 1986
According to previous work, failure to confide in others about traumatic events is associated with increased incidence of stress-related disease. The present study served as a preliminary investigation to learn if writing about traumatic events would influence long-term measures of health as well as short-term indicators of physiological arousal and reports of negative moods. In addition, we examined the aspects of writing about traumatic events (i.e., cognitive, affective, or both) that are most related to physiological and self-report variables. Forty-six healthy undergraduates wrote about either personally traumatic life events or trivial topics on 4 consecutive days. In addition to health center records, physiological measures and self-reported moods and physical symptoms were collected throughout the experiment. Overall, writing about both the emotions and facts surrounding a traumatic event was associated with relatively higher blood pressure and negative moods following the essays, but fewer health center visits in the 6 months following the experiment. Although the findings and underlying theory should be considered preliminary, they bear directly on issues surrounding catharsis, self-disclosure, and a general theory of psychosomatics based on behavioral inhibition.
View
Optimism, Coping, and Health: Assessment and Implications of Generalized Outcome Expectancies
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 1985
This article describes a scale measuring dispositional optimism, defined in terms of generalized outcome expectancies. Two preliminary studies assessed the scale’s psychometric properties and its relationships with several other instruments. The scale was then used in a longitudinal study of symptom reporting among a group of undergraduates. Specifically, respondents were asked to complete three questionnaires 4 weeks before the end of a semester. Included in the questionnaire battery was the measure of optimism, a measure of private self-consciousness, and a 39-item physical symptom checklist. Subjects completed the same set of questionnaires again on the last day of class. Consistent with predictions, subjects who initially reported being highly optimistic were subsequently less likely to report being bothered by symptoms (even after correcting for initial symptom-report levels) than were subjects who initially reported being less optimistic. This effect tended to be stronger among persons high in private self-consciousness than among those lower in private self-consciousness. Discussion centers on other health related applications of the optimism scale, and the relationships between our theoretical orientation and several related theories.
View
Causal Explanations for Infertility
Chapter
  • Jan 1991
Infertility offers an ideal opportunity to examine people’s cognitive adaptation in the face of threat. First, it is a major life event that is an impediment to a developmental milestone, the transition to parenthood (Belsky, Spanier, & Rovine, 1983; Hobbs & Cole, 1976). The magnitude of this threat is captured in the following spontaneous descriptions offered by our research participants: I think it’s the worst experience of my life. The only other tragedy I can compare it to in my life was when my father died, out of the blue... Devastating, frustrating, painful, rageful. As many negative adjectives I could think of to describe it. It’s not an experience I would wish on anyone.
View