Benefits of Expressive Writing in Lowering Rumination and Depressive Symptoms
Section snippets
Overview of study
Undergraduate students who reported elevated symptoms of depression in the past but whose present level of depressive symptoms was within normal levels were recruited and randomly assigned to write for 20 min on 3 consecutive days in either emotionally expressive (writing about their deepest thoughts and feelings on current and past emotional upheavals) or control (writing objectively about their time management) conditions. Half of the treatment and control participants were randomly assigned
Sample characteristics
As described under Methods, 5 of the 97 participants who began the study did not complete the 6-month assessment. In addition, one 64-year-old nontraditional college student from the expressive writing group was excluded from data analyses because of atypical responses and another participant from the control writing group was excluded because his graduation during the course of the study led to substantial portions of his data being missing. Hence, the final sample used for statistical
Discussion
The results of this study support the benefits of expressive writing in lowering depression symptoms for depression-vulnerable college students at a 6-month follow-up. These changes, which were found only among less expressive participants (those with high ERQ Suppression scores), appear to be mediated by changes in RRS Brooding but not Reflection scores.
Although we had not anticipated that benefits of expressive writing would be limited to high-suppressing participants, this finding does
Clinical Implications
The expressive writing paradigm has produced clinically meaningful results for both mental and physical health across a variety of populations (Smyth, 1998). The current study is the first to assess its usefulness in lowering subsequent depression symptoms among formerly depressed participants. Findings provide encouraging preliminary support for the utility of expressive writing interventions in preventing depression among relatively inexpressive individuals and point to the importance of
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