The Effects of Self-presentation on an Expressive Writing Task for Trauma Survivors

• Main Author: Danson, Jonathan J.
• Other Authors: Watson, Jeanne
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Expressive Writing; Emotions; Writing; Self-Presentation; Impression Management; Trauma; Post Traumatic Stress; Journal; Diary; Self-Disclosure; DIsclosure; Emotional Experiencing; Expression; Emotional Expression; Therapy; Intervention; Traumatic; Perfectionism; 0622
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/24556

Expressive Writing (EW) involves writing in an emotionally expressive manner about an experienced event, and has been shown to be related to increases in psychological and physical well-being. The purpose of the current study was to extend previous work by examining how self-presentation affects psychological and physical gains following the EW task. Forty one participants who have experienced a traumatic event were recruited from the community and given either an EW or control activity. Measures assessing self-presentation and various indices of health were administered at baseline and again at one month follow-up to determine changes in symptomatology. Results indicated that higher levels of perfectionistic self-presentation were significantly associated with less improvement in symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress. Further, a nonsignificant moderation trend emerged whereby higher levels of perfectionistic self-presentation were associated with more improvement in symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress in the EW group but not control group.