Expression of negative and positive events through writing: Implications for psychotherapy and health

Previous researchers have found that subjects who wrote about traumatic exp eriences demonstrated improvements in physical health and have concluded th at writing is a form of self-disclosure which helps to decrease inhibition and, thereby, improve health. Our experiment extended this research by exam ining whether writing about positive life events also affected physical hea lth as well as psychological health and mood. Also investigated were the re lationships between self-disclosure and inhibition and we examined how self -disclosure, inhibition and psychological distress differentially effected health outcomes. One hundred and fifty-six participants were randomly assig ned to the Negative Feelings Group (NFG), Positive Feelings Group (PFG) and Control Group (CG) and wrote about negative, positive, and neutral life ev ents respectively. No significant improvements in physical health were note d across all three groups. There were significant improvements in psycholog ical health and decreases in psychological distress across all groups with the PFG showing the most improvement followed by the CG and the NFG. Signif icant increases in physical sensations and changes in mood were found for t he NFG and PFG suggesting that writing about negative and positive topics i s physically and emotionally arousing. Self-disclosure and inhibition were unrelated to changes in health, although inhibition alone positively correl ated with health. Self-disclosure and inhibition were not related to each o ther and correlated differently with the experimental variables suggesting that they are separate constructs. Psychological distress was negatively re lated to health and less psychologically distressed participants showed gre ater changes in health following this intervention. Implications for physic al and psychological health and psychotherapy are discussed.