Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

1388

Date

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Psychology

Concentration

General Psychology

Committee Chair

Jeffrey S. Berman

Committee Member

Neimeyer Robert

Committee Member

Kreuz J. Roger

Abstract

Writing and speaking about a traumatic event have been shown to produce physiological and psychological benefits. However, there is evidence that the mechanisms of change may differ between the mediums. The current study examines cohesion through the language used (i.e., causal, insight, conjunction, tentative, positive and negative emotional words) as a possible indicator of why the disclosures are helpful. The results indicate that those who speak are initially more coherent than those who write and that this coherency is negatively related to distress for those in the spoken comparison group. However, by the second session of disclosure the relation to distress was no longer evident. A variation of the analysis was completed excluding emotion words, and similar results were achieved. The author discusses possible reasons for these findings and suggests having clients of psychotherapy speak about a traumatic event before completing a writing assignment about it for an increased benefit.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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