Harvey, J., Sanders, E., Ko, L., and Manusov, V., & Yi, J. (2018). The Impact of Written Emotional Disclosure on Cancer Caregivers’ Perceptions of Burden, Stress, and Depression: A Randomized Controlled Trial.  Health Communications, Vol.33, p. 824-832.

As a result of a brief three week intervention, the study demonstrated the potential for writing to have beneficial outcome on caregiver burden, stress, and depression.  Writing about feelings and about benefits of caregiving reduced caregiver depression. Writing about time management, without an emotional component, was also effective in reducing caregiver stress.

Expressive Writing for Cancer Caregivers

Writing benefits caregiver burden of stress and depression

As a result of a brief three week intervention, the study demonstrated the potential for writing to have beneficial on caregiver burden, stress, and depression.  Writing about feelings and about benefits of caregiver reduced caregiver depression. Writing about time management, without an emotional component, was effective in reducing caregiver stress. This study also points to the need for more longitudinal studies.

Mackenzie, C., Wiprzycka, U,.Hasher, L., & Goldstein, D. (2008). Seeing the glass half full: optimistic expressive writing improves mental health among chronically stressed caregivers. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13 (Pt 1): 73-

Emotional Anger Management

Elisabeth Christiana & Vryscha Novia Ningsih (2017). Effectivity of Expressive Writing Technique to Increase the Emotional Anger Management to 10th Grade Electrical Engineering Student in State Vocational High School. Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 118. 9th International Conference for Science Educators and Teachers (ICSET).

This is one of numerous studies focusing on practical applications of writing beginning to appear in the international literature.

Writing as self-help for stress and trauma

Smyth, J., & Helm, R. (2003). Focused expressive writing as self-help for stress and trauma. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59(2), 227-235. doi:10.1002/jclp.10144

Smyth and Helm report the value of workbooks used to guide the writing of asthma patients. They used a procedure called Focused Expressive Writing (FEW) concluding that self-administered manuals represent a promising avenue for the use of FEW as a self-help technique. A case illustration is included in the article.

Introduction

An increasing body of research is exploring the effectiveness of expressive/therapeutic writing in many contexts including, but not limited to: relationships, health issues, self-esteem, grief, and trauma.

Emotional Anger Management

Elisabeth Christiana & Vryscha Novia Ningsih (2017). Effectivity of Expressive Writing Technique to Increase the Emotional Anger Management to 10th Grade Electrical Engineering Student in State Vocational High School. Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 118. 9th International Conference for Science Educators and Teachers (ICSET).

This is one of numerous studies focusing on practical applications of writing beginning to appear in the international literature.

Breast Cancer 
Expressive writing in early breast cancer survivors.

One hundred and twenty participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: a control group (no writing) or one of three expressive writing groups: breast cancer trauma, any self-selected trauma, and facts related to breast cancer. Participants wrote 20 minutes a day for 4 consecutive days. Their quality-of-life was measured at the beginning of the study, at 1 month, and at 6 months after writing. The findings revealed that expressive writing about one’s breast cancer, breast cancer trauma, and facts related to breast cancer, significantly improved the quality-of-life outcome. The authors concluded that expressive writing, focusing the instructions on writing about one’s living and dealing with a diagnosis of breast cancer, is recommended for early breast cancer survivors as a feasible and easily implemented treatment approach to improve quality-of-life.

Craft MA, Davis GC, Paulson RM. (2013). Journal of Advanced Nursing. Feb;69(2):305-15. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2012.06008.x.  Epub 2012 Apr 11.

Work Place Injustice

The researchers explored the benefit of writing about workplace injustice. One hundred participants were randomly assigned to write on 4 consecutive days about (a) their emotions, (b) their thoughts, (c) both their emotions and their thoughts surrounding an injustice, or (d) a trivial topic. Participants in the emotions and thoughts condition reported higher psychological well-being, fewer intentions to retaliate, and higher levels of personal resolution than did participants in the other conditions. Participants in the emotions and thoughts condition also reported less anger than did participants who wrote only about their emotions.

Barclay, L. J., & Skarlicki, D. P. (2009). Healing the wounds of organizational injustice: Examining the benefits of expressive writing. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 511-523. DOI: 10.1037/a0013451.

The website This I Believe is an international organization that shares people’s writing about their core values. There are over 100,000 essays written by people from all walks of life and categorized by theme. They also have a weekly featured podcast.

Writing and Marriage
(http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612474938)

Eli Finkel and his colleagues of Northwestern University surveyed 120 couples for two years about their relationship satisfaction. There was no intervention in the first year. That is, participants were not directed to write anything. In the second year, the group was divided in two. One group continued to simply fill out the surveys. The other group was asked to complete three seven-minute writing tasks over the course of the year. They were instructed to write about arguments that they had in the previous months from “the perspective of a theoretical neutral third party”. The couples in the writing group were found to have greater relationship satisfaction at the end of the second year than the couples who did not participate in the writing task.

Finkel, E. J., Slotter, E. B., Luchies, L. B., Walton, G. M., & Gross, J. J. (2013). A brief intervention to promote conflict-reappraisal preserves marital quality over time. Psychological Science, 24, 1595-1601.