Browsing by Subject "Expressive writing"
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Item An online expressive writing intervention for the psychosexual well-being of women with a history of childhood sexual abuse : theory, mechanisms, and effectiveness in a randomized clinical trial(2021-06-09) Kilimnik, Chelsea Dawn; Meston, Cindy M.; Hixon, John Greg; Smits, Jasper AJ; Beevers, Christopher G; Boyd, Ryan LAs roughly 20% of women have experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA), the development of interventions for the associated decrements in psychosexual well-being is critically important. One such intervention, sexual schema expressive writing, has demonstrated promising efficacy in improving the psychosexual well-being of women with CSA histories. This treatment has been associated with reductions in the prominence of CSA themes in women’s sexual schema. Other research has shown that a greater prominence of CSA themes in women’s sexual self-schema is associated with decrements in sexual functioning. The current study is a randomized clinical trial of an online sexual schema expressive writing intervention compared to a daily events control condition for the improvement of women’s psychosexual well-being. The primary aims of the study were to test the intervention in an online modality and assess sexual schema change as a mechanism of action. After being randomized to one of the two conditions, women with CSA histories (N = 125) wrote in response to condition-respective treatment prompts for five sessions across three weeks. Psychosexual well-being and sexual schemas were assessed at baseline, post- treatment, and one-month follow-up. Both the daily events and the sexual schema conditions demonstrated significant gains in psychosexual well-being across the course of the treatment. Sexual schema change was supported as the mechanism of action for the sexual schema condition. These results suggest that targeting change in maladaptive schemas is an important treatment avenue for improving the psychosexual well-being of women with CSA histories. The online expressive writing intervention is an efficacious and accessible way to target schema change.Item The benefits of expressive writing on overgeneral memory and depressive symptoms(2009-12) Maestas, Kacey Little; Rude, Stephanie SandraTwo decades of research suggest that a non-specific style of autobiographical memory retrieval–known as overgeneral memory–may be a cognitive style that increases depression vulnerability. Recent theorizing and empirical evidence suggest the mechanisms underlying overgeneral memory include rumination and avoidance. This study provided a preliminary investigation of the effectiveness of an expressive writing intervention, which has been found to reduce rumination and avoidance, in reducing overgeneral memory, with the ultimate goal of preventing future depressive symptoms among non-depressed college students. Two hundred and seven non-depressed college students completed the expressive writing intervention, in addition to a one-month and six month follow-up assessment. Participants were randomized one of three writing conditions: traditional expressive writing, specific expressive writing, or control writing. Participants in the traditional and specific expressive writing conditions were instructed to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about an emotional event; the specific expressive writing condition contained the additional instruction that participants describe the events in a vivid and detailed manner. Participants in the control condition were instructed to write about a neutral topic (i.e., time management). All groups wrote for 20 minutes on three consecutive days. Study results showed that compared to participants in the control writing condition, participants in the traditional and specific expressive writing conditions demonstrated significantly greater autobiographical memory specificity at the six-month follow-up, but not at the one-month follow-up. Furthermore, the observed increase in autobiographical memory specificity for the expressive writing conditions could not be attributed to change in depressive symptoms over the same time interval. Results revealed that the effect of the traditional expressive writing intervention on increased autobiographical memory specificity was partially mediated by a reduction in avoidance assessed at the one-month follow-up. The hypothesis that rumination would partially mediate the effect of the expressive writing intervention on increased autobiographical memory specificity was not supported. Despite preliminary evidence that an expressive writing intervention compared to a control wiring condition is effective in increasing autobiographical memory specificity over a six-month period for initially non-depressed college students, it remains to be seen if increased autobiographical memory specificity decreases vulnerability to future depressive symptoms.Item Coping with perceived future stressors : the effects of a proactive coping writing intervention(2010-08) Kenney, Brent Allen; Holahan, Charles J.The present study proposed an integrated coping framework that included both personal and social resources and explored the interaction of these constructs with future-oriented, proactive coping processes. Expressive writing was utilized as a cost-effective and minimally intrusive intervention to encourage individuals to facilitate proactive coping in cognitive and behavioral domains. One-hundred and eighty five participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: 1) Proactive Writing (N = 63) to facilitate processing of a significant future stressor that is anticipated but is not certain to occur in the immediate future, 2) Expressive Writing (N = 53) to facilitate processing of the most difficult problem or situation experienced in the previous twelve months, or 3) Control Writing (N = 69) regarding time management as a credible placebo condition. The current study had three empirical aims. First, the current study experimentally tested whether implementing expressive writing as a proactive coping intervention increased proactive coping. Second, the current study tested whether proactive coping was positively related to adaptive functioning. Third, the current study vii examined reactive coping and perceived social support as mediators of the proactive coping to adaptive functioning relationship. Findings indicated that proactive coping and cognitive and behavioral coping efforts were associated with several clinical outcomes in the domains of psychological affect, life satisfaction, and physical health. Significant group differences in days per week of exercise and overeating behavior were present following the intervention, with a marginally significant trend found for social network size. Percentage of approach-oriented cognitive and behavioral coping towards anticipated and extant stressors, and perceptions of available support, enacted support, and satisfaction with one's social network were examined for mediational properties. Overall findings did not support the proposed mediation model of proactive coping. Implications of findings, limitations and future directions are discussed.Item Expressive writing therapy for adults who stutter : a literature review and proposal for clinical application(2017-05) Bailey, Catherine Elizabeth; Byrd, Courtney T.The current psychotherapeutic literature on expressive writing therapy offers an evidence-based template for how speech-language pathologists might adapt the technique to treat adults who stutter. Expressive writing therapy builds on the existing clinical tradition of journaling or writing during therapy sessions for people who stutter and has the following advantages: a) ease of administration b) economical dosage c) measurable outcomes. Speech-language pathologists can follow the general guidelines laid out in expressive writing therapy trials while adapting the intervention for adults who stutter in clinical practice. No research has tested the effectiveness of this technique with adults who stutter, but existing research supports its use in this population. This report summarizes the findings of research trials of expressive writing therapy and suggests preliminary guidelines for its application with adults who stutter.Item The impact of expressive writing on test anxiety(2012-05) Nering, Vanessa; Schallert, Diane L.; Robinson, DanielThe study attempted to assess whether test anxiety could be successfully managed using an expressive writing or meditation anxiety reduction technique, and whether these results would be maintained one week following the manipulation. Three administrations of the Test Anxiety Inventory were collected one week before, directly after, and one week following the assignment of participants to one of three study test conditions: meditation, expressive writing, and a control (narrative account of the previous day’s events). The students were given a 24-question GRE practice exam to simulate a high-stakes test environment. Repeated measures ANOVA and ANCOVA were performed to test the effectiveness of the intervention. Relationships between GPA, procrastination, test-preparedness, and test anxiety were examined, as were the correlations among depression, worry, and test anxiety. The results of the main and exploratory analyses did not indicate any significant differences across the three conditions. Suggestions for future research include incorporating a more robust version of the treatment, recruiting more participants reporting high anxiety at baseline, and utilizing test conditions in which the participants are more invested.Item Perceived acceptability of abusive behavior in the maintenance of psychologically abusive relationships(2011-08) Chang, Christine Susan, 1977-; Swann, William B.; Gosling, Samuel D.; Beevers, Christopher G.; Pennebaker, James W.; Loving, Timothy J.In this series of studies, I hypothesized that people’s perceptions of certain psychologically abusive acts as acceptable or not acceptable would impact whether they would remain in psychologically abusive relationships. In Study 1, I explored the historic link between low self-esteem in women and receiving high levels of abuse. I found that women who were low in self-esteem found psychologically abusive behavior depicted in a series of vignettes to be significantly more acceptable than did women who were high in self-esteem. In Study 2, I found that women who were currently in abusive relationships found psychologically abusive behavior depicted in a video to be significantly more acceptable than did women who were currently in non-abusive relationships. Furthermore, I found that the woman’s own abusive behavior toward her partner was a stronger predictor than the abusiveness of her partner of whether she endorsed that she would stay in the depicted abusive relationship. Also, I found that among women who were highly abusive toward their partners and high in self-esteem, the more abuse they were receiving from their current partners, the more acceptable they found the depicted abusive behaviors. Based on these findings, in Study 3 I explored whether priming women’s (a) awareness of their own aggressive behaviors and (b) how these behaviors could change might have stronger impact on women’s views of the acceptability of their own abusive behaviors than women’s awareness of their partner’s aggressive behaviors. Furthermore, I explored whether these different foci would have impact on real-life consequences in changing abuse levels in the current relationship. The findings were mixed; short-term effects implied that writing about conflict, no matter whether the focus is on the self’s aggression or the partner’s aggression, seemed to encourage women to regard leaving an abusive relationship as more acceptable than writing about a neutral topic. Over the long-term, however, writing about conflict, no matter whether the focus was on the self’s aggression or the partner’s aggression, exacerbated the partner’s psychologically aggressive behavior.