Testing a New Form of Expressive Writing on Wellbeing, Physical Health, and Depression Symptomatology

Writing has existed as a form of catharsis and healing for thousands of years but has only been tested experimentally within the last few decades. One of these writing interventions— expressive writing— has shown to have small but consistent effects across various physiological and psychological constructs. However, there have been recent criticisms of the expressive writing paradigm, with researchers questioning if the current prompts open-ended nature leads to confounds in discovering underlying processes of the expressive writing task. Additionally, researchers have criticized utilizing measures that promote a disease model paradigm. Therefore, the current study contributes to the literature on expressive writing by creating a new expressive writing prompt and empirically comparing it to the common expressive writing prompt through quantitative methods. One hundred and fifty-four respondents completed a three-day online survey about their current depressive symptoms, physical health, and wellbeing. Additionally, they completed either an expressive writing or positive expressive writing task for twenty minutes, followed by measures to examine psychological flow and broadened cognition. Results revealed lower depression scores immediately after the three-day positive expressive writing intervention, but not in the expressive writing as normal condition, as well as lowered physical health symptoms in the positive expressive writing condition over the course of treatment. Additionally, broadened cognition immediately after the expressive writing task predicted reduced depression scores in the positive expressive writing group, but not the expressive writing as normal group. However, the lack of long-term psychological gains led to recommendations for future research and working towards alternative methods of expressive writing and brief interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Willard, Ryan M

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kerr, Barbara A

• Psychology
• Counseling psychology
• Depressive
• Expressive Writing
• Flow
• Physical health
• Positive psychology
• wellbeing

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:18284

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/38987