Murray & Segal, 1994: Writing about traumatic life experiences reduced painful thoughts, but increased negative mood among undergraduates
Reference:
Murray, E. J., & Segal, D. L. (1994). Emotional processing in vocal and written expression of feelings about traumatic experiences. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 7(3), 391-405.
Download PDFSummary:
Asking undergraduates to write or talk about personally traumatic life events for 20-minutes/day on 4 consecutive days reduced the self-reported pain people experienced in thinking about this event over this period. However, during this period people experienced increasing levels of negative mood and decreasing levels of positive mood, relative to students who wrote or talked about trivial events.
Psychological Process:
What Desired Meaning is At Stake?
What is the Person Trying to Understand?
Selves (My Own and Others')Approach to Desired Meaning
What about it?
Changing beliefs about emotions, states, and the valence of the self-conceptHow?
Psychological Question Addressed
Are negative past emotions, states, and experiences ongoing and undermining?Are negative past emotions, states, and experiences ongoing and undermining?Psychological Question Addressed
Are negative past emotions, states, and experiences ongoing and undermining?Psychological Process 2:
Psychological Process 3:
Social Area:
Well-being
Intervention Technique:
Active reflection, on negative experiences