Benefits of Expressive Writing in Lowering Rumination and Depressive Symptoms
Abstract
Depression-vulnerable college students (with both elevated prior depressive symptoms and low current depressive symptoms) wrote on 3 consecutive days in either an expressive writing or a control condition. As predicted, participants scoring above the median on the suppression scale of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003) showed significantly lower depression symptoms at the 6-month assessment when they wrote in the expressive writing versus the control condition. Additional analyses revealed that treatment benefits were mediated by changes in the Brooding but not the Reflection scale of the Ruminative Response Scale (Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991). A "booster" writing session predicted to enhance treatment benefits failed to have a significant effect.
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Expressive writing about negative experiences is a well-studied and efficacious intervention that can help reduce depression symptoms.
“We did not expect this condition to be inert because writing expressively about negative experiences is a well-studied and efficacious intervention it its own right and can help reduce depression symptoms [40].”
From Efficacy of a web-based, crowdsourced peer-to-peer cognitive reappraisal platform for depression: Randomized controlled trial (2015) · cites this paper as [40]
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“This explains outcomes from a range of studies indicating that EW has mixed and at best, modest, benefits for people suffering from chronic pain (e.g., Lumley et al., 2013), while it seems more effective for mild and major depression (e.g., Gortner et al., 2006).”
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- Authors
- Gortner, E.-M., Rude, S. S., & Pennebaker, J. W.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gortner, Eva-Maria
- Venue
- Behavior Therapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2006-09
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 292-303
- ISSN
- 0005-7894 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2164591879
- Cited by
- 328
- References
- 78
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 32 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 10.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Behavior Therapy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH59321)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health via Writing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
- Keywords
- expressive writing, rumination, depressive symptoms, depression vulnerability, university students, emotion regulation, brooding, reflection, emotional suppression
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Affect, Affective Symptoms, Depression, Female, Humans, Male, Reference Values, Self Concept, Thinking, Writing, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
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