title: Expressive writing as a therapeutic process for drug-dependent women.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Veteran Affairs , VA Connecticut Healthcare System , West Haven , Connecticut , USA.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Meshberg-Cohen
authors.forename: Dace
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Svikis
authors.forename: Thomas J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: McMahon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D017831:Diagnosis, Dual (Psychiatry); D019260:Expressed Emotion; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012114:Residential Treatment; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014956:Writing; D055815:Young Adult