TY - JOUR
T1 - Expressive writing as a therapeutic process for drug-dependent women
AU - Meshberg-Cohen, Sarah
AU - Svikis, Dace
AU - McMahon, Thomas J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by NIH grant NIDA R36 DA024021-01 and from the VCU Institute for Women’s Health.
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - Background: Although women with substance use disorders (SUDs) have high rates of trauma and posttraumatic stress, many addiction programs do not offer trauma-specific treatments. One promising intervention is Pennebaker's expressive writing, which involves daily, 20-minute writing sessions to facilitate disclosure of stressful experiences. Methods: Women (N = 149) in residential treatment completed a randomized clinical trial comparing expressive writing with control writing. Repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to document change in psychological and physical distress from baseline to 2-week and 1-month follow-ups. Analyses also examined immediate levels of negative affect following expressive writing. Results: Expressive writing participants showed greater reductions in posttraumatic symptom severity, depression, and anxiety scores, when compared with control writing participants at the 2-week follow-up. No group differences were found at the 1-month follow-up. Safety data were encouraging: although expressive writing participants showed increased negative affect immediately after each writing session, there were no differences in pre-writing negative affect scores between conditions the following day. By the final writing session, participants were able to write about traumatic/stressful events without having a spike in negative affect. Conclusions: Results suggest that expressive writing may be a brief, safe, low-cost, adjunct to SUD treatment that warrants further study as a strategy for addressing posttraumatic distress in substance-abusing women.
AB - Background: Although women with substance use disorders (SUDs) have high rates of trauma and posttraumatic stress, many addiction programs do not offer trauma-specific treatments. One promising intervention is Pennebaker's expressive writing, which involves daily, 20-minute writing sessions to facilitate disclosure of stressful experiences. Methods: Women (N = 149) in residential treatment completed a randomized clinical trial comparing expressive writing with control writing. Repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to document change in psychological and physical distress from baseline to 2-week and 1-month follow-ups. Analyses also examined immediate levels of negative affect following expressive writing. Results: Expressive writing participants showed greater reductions in posttraumatic symptom severity, depression, and anxiety scores, when compared with control writing participants at the 2-week follow-up. No group differences were found at the 1-month follow-up. Safety data were encouraging: although expressive writing participants showed increased negative affect immediately after each writing session, there were no differences in pre-writing negative affect scores between conditions the following day. By the final writing session, participants were able to write about traumatic/stressful events without having a spike in negative affect. Conclusions: Results suggest that expressive writing may be a brief, safe, low-cost, adjunct to SUD treatment that warrants further study as a strategy for addressing posttraumatic distress in substance-abusing women.
KW - Expressive writing
KW - substance abuse
KW - trauma
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U2 - 10.1080/08897077.2013.805181
DO - 10.1080/08897077.2013.805181
M3 - Article
C2 - 24588298
AN - SCOPUS:84897714107
SN - 0889-7077
VL - 35
SP - 80
EP - 88
JO - Substance Abuse
JF - Substance Abuse
IS - 1
ER -