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The meaning extraction method (MEM), an advanced computerized text analysis technique, was used to analyze women’s sexual self-schemas. Participants (n = 239) completed open-ended essays about their personal feelings associated with sex and sexuality. These essays were analyzed using the MEM, a procedure designed to extract common themes from natural language. Using the MEM procedure, we extracted seven unique themes germane to sexual self-schemas: family and development, virginity, abuse, relationship, sexual activity, attraction, and existentialism. Each of these themes is comprised of frequently used words across the participants’ descriptions of their sexual selves. Significant differences in sexual self-schemas were observed to covary with age, relationship status, and sexual abuse history.

Objective Sexual self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the sexual self that influence the processing of sexually pertinent information and guide sexual behavior. Until recently sexual self-schemas were exclusively assessed with self-report instruments. Recent research using the Meaning Extraction Method (MEM), an inductive method of topic modeling, identified seven unique themes of sexual self-schemas: family and development, virginity, abuse, relationship, sexual activity, attraction, and existentialism from essays of 239 women (Stanton, Boyd, Pulverman, & Meston, 2015). In the current study, these themes were used to examine changes in theme prominence after an expressive writing treatment Method Women (N = 138) with a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) completed a five-session expressive writing treatment, and essays on sexual self-schemas written at pre-treatment and post-treatment were examined for changes in themes. Results Women showed a reduction in the prominence of the abuse, family and development, virginity, and attraction themes, and an increase in the existentialism theme. Conclusions This study supports the validity of the seven themes identified by Stanton and colleagues (2015) and suggests that expressive writing may aid women with a history of sexual abuse to process their abuse history such that it becomes a less salient aspect of their sexual self-schemas.

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