Journaling for Health Part 5: Forget Freud—Write About Happiness!

This is part 5 (of 5) of a series on journaling to improve health, or what James W. Pennebaker, the seminal scholar on the topic, calls “expressive writing.”   I’ve been doing research into expressive writing, which has been demonstrated to improve mental and physical health, in order to roll my learnings into an interactive experience currently in development.

The expressive writing paradigm, led by James W. Pennebaker’s seminal research, has made the overarching assumption that expressive writers must relive and relieve trauma in order to access health benefits from writing. Laura A. King (2001) contends that writing about past trauma by itself might not be the only manner to approach the expressive writing paradigm:

It is notable that all of these [expressive writing] studies have started with a particular bias—that benefiting from writing must involve encountering and coping with a traumatic event from the past.  This assumption, along with the joint notions of catharsis and insight, that some past trauma is driving current health echoes a Freudian notion of past experiences driving current behavior.  Thus far, explanations of the healing power of writing have been predicated on the notion that individuals must revisit, reexperience, or reevaluate past traumas (799).

In 2001, King found that writing about life goals—i.e. one’s best possible future self—had very similar positive health benefits to writing about trauma.  Participants who wrote about trauma and those who wrote about their best possible selves exhibited enhanced immunity when compared to control groups.

Later, in 2004, Burton & King studied the effects of writing about intensely positive experiences. Instructions for Burton & King’s 2004 experimental group were starkly different to those given in Pennebaker’s initial study on expressive writing (Pennebaker, 1989 [see Pennebaker’s instructions here]). Over the course of three days, participants in Burton & King’s experimental condition were asked to write for 20 minutes after reading the following:

Think of the most wonderful experience or experiences in your life, happiest moments, ecstatic moments, moments of rapture, perhaps from being in love, or from listening to music, or suddenly “being hit” by a book or painting or from some great creative moment. Choose one such experience or moment. Try to imagine yourself at that moment, including all the feelings and emotions associated with the experience. Now write about the experience in as much detail as possible trying to include the feelings, thoughts, and emotions that were present at the time. Please try your best to re-experience the emotions involved.

Research demonstrated that writing about intensely positive experiences, similar to writing about trauma, decreased participants’ doctor visits in the months to come.  These findings call into question the focus on trauma in previous research on expressive writing. Burton and King suggest that writing on negative experiences and writing on positive experiences affect health through different mechanisms. They propose that future research explore writing as a process of self-construction, or the creation of “life story,” by which a “greater understanding of [the writer's] own needs, priorities, emotions, etc.” is reached (Burton & King, 2004, p 160).

References:

Burton, C. M., King, Laura A. (2004) The Health Benefits of Writing About Intensely Positive Experiences. Journal of Research in Personality (Vol. 38, pp 150-163).

King, Laura A. (2001) The Health Benefits of Writing About Life Goals.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin  (Vol. 27, No. 7, pp. 798-807).