We have concluded the first experiment and to my great surprise, it was a success! Listen to hear what he thought of the act of writing about his day, his thoughts, the world situation, and his feelings!
Here are some of the additional details discussed in this episode.
I discuss some of the benefits of expressive writing from scientific research using The Oxford Handbook of Health Psychology, specifically the work by Pennebaker and Chung 2011. I also referenced Smyth’s work from 1998.
For the anecdotal or mainstream benefits, I used Journey.Cloud as the main reference with others to support.
Lastly, here are the results from the Skeptic’s subjective surveys. The POMS (profile of mood states) combines all of the negative subcategories (fatigue, irritability, numbness, and tension) and subtracts the positive subcategory (vigor). After much to do, have decided to take the absolute score to use for visualization. We have also used general rating of physical, mental, and social health to track changes. Lastly, we have used the DALDA (daily analysis of life demands for athletes), to track how he is feeling over the treatments. Most of these surveys are used with athletes (my research specialty), but are applicable in this situation.
Stay tuned for posts from the Skeptic on his take on this treatment!
Most of the general ratings improved or remained high.
