October 22, 2023

Creativity is a basic human response to trauma and a natural emergency defense system.

Desalvo (2000)

I spent my time researching and reading about expressive writing this week. Interviewing the expert helped me think about ideas for my intervention, and Wednesday’s class helped me with what I will present in my Dragons Den this Tuesday.

Expressive writing often entails spending 15-20 minutes each day for 3-5 days writing about one’s most profound sentiments and emotions about an event or conversation. People may write about the same or different issues every day. (Rogers and Schainker, n.d.) , In the expressive writing paradigm, participants are asked to write about such events for 15–20 minutes on 3–5 occasions. (Baikie and Wilhelm, 2018)

Expressive writing can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, improve sleep and performance, and improve focus and clarity. From Writing Can Help Us Heal from Trauma (Siegel-Acevedo, 2021)

According to Round et al. (2022), teachers are an occupational group especially prone to burnout, a condition produced by persistent stress from work overload.

The present research supports the idea that positive expressive writing reduces state anxiety. Positive writing boosts satisfaction with promotion chances and contingent rewards for full-time workers. These findings imply that positive expressive writing is a valuable strategy for improving aspects of job satisfaction and, hence, has the potential to improve work-related well-being. However, as expected, we found no specific benefits of positive expressive writing for instructors, nor did we find any benefits of positive expressive writing for burnout. 

I will ask my participants to write these draft topics and questions about the intervention in 4 days.

1) Factors that affect burnout 

• What have you experienced lately that makes you feel stressed or tired, both mentally and physically?

2) What happens when they face burnout? How can they know more and notice that burnout is coming or happening? 

• What are your feelings and physical symptoms at the moment?

3) Their goals and values 

• What are your values in work or life? Why do you have these values and want to keep them?
• What are your goals in work or life? Why do you have these goals and want to achieve them?

4) What do they plan to do next to explore solutions they have at hand or solutions they haven’t tried?

• What are you planning to do next with your situation? What is your process, strategy, or plan to achieve your goal or improve your life?

REF.

Baikie, K.A. and Wilhelm, K. (2018). Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, [online] 11(5), pp.338–346. doi:https://doi.org/10.1192/apt.11.5.338.

Desalvo, L.A. (2000). Writing as a way of healing : how telling our stories transforms our lives. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press.

Round, E.K., Wetherell, M.A., Elsey, V. and Smith, M.A. (2022). Positive expressive writing as a tool for alleviating burnout and enhancing wellbeing in teachers and other full-time workers. Cogent Psychology, 9(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2022.2060628.

Rogers, C.R. and Schainker, L. (n.d.). Processing Tough Emotions Using Expressive Writing. [online] extension.usu.edu. Available at: https://extension.usu.edu/relationships/faq/processing-tough-emotions-using-expressive-writing#:~:text=The%20practice%20of%20expressive%20writing [Accessed 22 Oct. 2023].

Siegel-Acevedo, D. (2021). Writing Can Help Us Heal from Trauma. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2021/07/writing-can-help-us-heal-from-trauma.

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