Expressive Writing Intervention for Adolescents' Somatic Symptoms and Mood

Soliday, Elizabeth; Garofalo, John P.; Rogers, Debra

doi:10.1207/s15374424jccp3304_14

Cited by 54 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Critically, however, there were no differences between the emotional and non-emotional writing groups, suggesting that focusing on emotional aspects of stressful events was no more beneficial for children than simply describing their daily activities. In contrast, Soliday, Garafolo, and Rogers (2004) found that 8th grade children who engaged in expressive writing showed decreases in distress 20 and 50 days after intervention. The conflicting results between these two studies may be due to differences in the ages studied, the timing of assessment, or both.…”

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confidence: 75%

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Children's narratives and well-being

Fıvush

Marin

Crawford

et al. 2007

Cognition & Emotion

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Research with adults indicates that writing causal-explanatory and emotionally disclosing narratives of stressful experiences is related to psychological well-being. Limited research with children has shown mixed results, but developmental theory suggests that simple extrapolation from adult findings might be problematic. In this study, 9-to 13-year-old children engaged in three days of writing under emotional and non-emotional instructions, and completed measures of depression, anxiety, strengths and difficulties, and somatic symptoms both at baseline and 2 months following intervention. Narratives were coded using a developmentally appropriate, exhaustive coding system. Children in the emotional writing group wrote more about negative evaluations, problems, emotions, explanations and coping than children in the non-emotional writing group. However, those children who wrote more about negative evaluations, problems and explanations subsequently showed higher levels of anxiety, depression and difficulties. Due to limited narrative and emotional regulation skills, expressive writing may not benefit, and may even be detrimental for, some children.Narratives are socially and culturally conventionalised forms for organising and representing our past experiences (Bruner, 1987;McAdams, 1992). Because personal narratives move beyond simple memory of what happened to include explanations and emotional evaluations, narratives are the way in which we create meaning of our personal past, and are linked to Correspondence should be addressed to: Robyn Fivush,

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confidence: 75%

“…Indeed, Soliday et al (2004), who did find a decrease in distress as a result of expressive writing with 8th graders, included a shorter follow-up assessment. Again, Frattaroli's (2006) meta-analysis indicates that benefits are stronger for adults assessed sooner rather then later following expressive writing.…”

Section: Children's Narratives and Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's narratives and well-being

Fıvush

Marin

Crawford

et al. 2007

Cognition & Emotion

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“…We examined expressive writing, based on the work of Pennebaker (1997), in which participants write about issues of emotional significance in three sessions, on the basis that this activity has been found to improve negative affect in adolescents and adults (Koopman et al, 2005;Soliday, Garofalo, & Rogers, 2004). We included this control condition because we found that it did not result in significant decreases in negative affect relative to an assessmentonly control condition in a prior prevention trial (Stice, Shaw, Burton, & Wade, 2006).…”

Section: Expressive Writingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Randomized trial of a brief depression prevention program: An elusive search for a psychosocial placebo control condition

Stice

Burton

Bearman

et al. 2007

Behaviour Research and Therapy

126

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This trial compared a brief group cognitive-behavioral (CBT) depression prevention program to a waitlist control condition and four placebo or alternative interventions. High-risk adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms (N = 225, M age = 18, 70% female) were randomized to CBT, supportive-expressive group intervention, bibliotherapy, expressive writing, journaling, or waitlist conditions and completed assessments at baseline, termination, and 1-month and 6-month followup. All five active interventions showed significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms at termination than waitlist controls; effects for CBT and bibliotherapy persisted into follow-up. CBT, supportive-expressive, and bibliotherapy participants also showed significantly greater decreases in depressive symptoms than expressive writing and journaling participants at certain follow-up points. Findings suggest there may be multiple ways to reduce depressive symptoms in high-risk adolescents, although expectancies, demand characteristics, and attention may have contributed to the observed effects. Keywordsdepression; prevention; high-risk; adolescent placebo; alternative interventions.Major depression is a common, recurrent, and impairing condition that predicts future suicide attempts, academic failure, interpersonal problems, unemployment, substance abuse, and delinquency (Gotlib, Lewinsohn, & Seeley, 1998;Newman et al., 1996;Reinherz, Giaconia, Hauf, Wasserman, & Silverman, 1999). Even subdiagnostic depressive symptoms persist over time and predict onset of psychiatric disorders, inpatient hospitalization, impaired social and academic functioning, and suicidal ideation (Capaldi & Stoolmiller, 1999;Nolen-Hoeksema, Girgus, & Seligman, 1992). Because less than one third of depressed youth receive treatment (Newman et al., 1996) and those who do often receive ineffective interventions (Weersing & Weisz, 2002), it is crucial to develop prevention programs for this common and debilitating condition.Several controlled trials have found that prevention programs based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles produce significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms than Correspondence should be addressed to Eric Stice, who is now at Oregon Research Institute, 1715 Franklin Blvd., Eugene, Oregon, 97403. Email: estice@ori.org.. Eric Stice, Emily Burton, and Sarah Kate Bearman, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin. Paul Rohde, Oregon Research Institute.Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptBehav Res Ther. Author manuscript...

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“…Communication by clients may help them to formulate their problems clearly and may even be of immediate value (I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion, in that writing about psychological difficulties has been shown to reduce distress in adolescents (Soliday et al, 2004) and may in itself be a therapeutic intervention).…”

Section: Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities and risks in e-therapy

Tantam¹

2006

Adv. psychiatr. treat

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The world wide web has many advantages for the psychotherapist and for the client, but it poses new challenges too. This article considers both in relation to information, disinformation and information overload; openness and availability of information; and the anomalies of being present, and able to meet other presences, in virtual space but with no physical body and with an identity that may be created for the occasion.

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Expressive Writing Intervention for Adolescents' Somatic Symptoms and Mood

Cited by 54 publications

References 33 publications

Children's narratives and well-being

Children's narratives and well-being

Randomized trial of a brief depression prevention program: An elusive search for a psychosocial placebo control condition

Opportunities and risks in e-therapy

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