The Use of Meaning Making in Expressive Writing: When Meaning is Beneficial

Abstract

In the current paper I examined whether engagement in the meaning making process during an expressive writing intervention is associated with better outcomes. Meaning making was operationalized in two ways—judges' ratings of meaning making and use of cognitive words. Better outcomes were operationalized as fewer intrusive thoughts associated with the event participants wrote about. The study was a re-analysis of a previously published set of expressive writing studies. A total of 84 participants nominated a negative event and completed three sessions of expressive writing. The results revealed that the relationship between meaning making and changes in intrusive thoughts depended on initial distress levels of the event. For participants who wrote about a highly distressing event, increases in meaning making were associated with greater decreases in intrusive thoughts. In stark contrast, for participants who wrote about less distressing events, increases in meaning making were related to increases in intrusive thoughts when judges' ratings were used as the measure of meaning making. When cognitive word use was used as the measure of meaning making, increases in meaning making were unrelated to changes in intrusive thoughts. These results suggest that meaning making during an expressive writing intervention can be beneficial, if the participant writes about a highly distressing event.

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