Post-Divorce Journaling May Hinder Healing for Some

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/post-divorce-journaling-may-hinder-healing-for-some.html

November 29, 2012
Contact: Anna Mikulak

Following a divorce or separation, many people are encouraged by loved ones or health-care professionals to keep journals about their feelings. But for some, writing in-depth about those feelings immediately after a split may do more harm than good, according to new research.

In a study of 90 recently divorced or separated individuals, psychological scientist David Sbarra of the University of Arizona and colleagues found that writing about one’s feelings can actually leave some people feeling more emotionally distraught months down the line, particularly those individuals who are prone to seeking a deeper meaning for their failed marriage.

The findings, forthcoming in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, came as a surprise to Sbarra, who initially set out to compare the effectiveness of two different styles of expressive writing on the emotional healing of recently separated or divorced individuals.

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The unexpected results suggest expressive writing of any kind can actually hinder emotional recovery for certain individuals, whereas non-expressive control writing might actually be a more effective intervention.

This was found to be true specifically among those labeled in the initial assessment as “high ruminators” — those with a tendency to brood over the circumstances of their separation in search of answers.

“At the eight-month follow up period, high ruminators actually reported the least distress in the control condition, suggesting that control writing for these people may actually be the beneficial thing,” Sbarra said.

Although not what he expected, Sbarra says the study’s findings make sense in retrospect.

“These are people who are essentially searching for meaning in their experience or who have a tendency to ruminate on their experience, brood on their experience and go over it and over it and over it again,” he said.

“If a person goes over and over something in their head, and then you say, ‘Write down your deepest darkest thoughts and go over it again,’ we will intensify their distress,” he said.

Further research is needed, Sbarra said, to measure whether non-expressive control writing provides healing benefits over not journaling at all. But he can imagine how journaling about mundane tasks might be helpful to some.

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Sbarra is quick to note that expressive writing has proved in numerous studies to be an effective intervention for individuals who have experienced stressful life events, and it should not be discounted. However, his recent findings suggest it may not be the best approach universally.

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