Emotional Expression in Written Essays and Psychotherapy

In an effort to understand emotional change, brief psychotherapy was compared with written expression about stressful life events as well as with a control condition of writing about trivial events using college students. The written expression condition was quite effective in temporarily arousing negative affect but not in changing feelings about the traumatic events. Some self-generated cognitive changes did occur. In contrast, psychotherapy aroused less negative affect but showed much more cognitive reappraisal and a dramatic shift to positive affect, as well as in a basic change in attitude about the stressful event. The study supports a model of therapeutic change stressing emotional expression followed by cognitive reappraisal rather than a model of simple affective discharge.