Psychologists say that profound disclosure improves mood, objective and subjective health, and the ability to function well.

Early research by James W. Pennebaker, PhD and colleagues revealed the benefits of "personal disclosure."

In 1988 study by Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser and Glaser, 50 students were assigned to write about traumatic experiences or superficial topics for four days straight.

Six weeks later, students in the trauma group reported more positive moods and fewer illnesses that their peers who wrote about everyday things. In addition, students in the trauma group had improved measures of cellular immunity and fewer visits to the student health center, suggesting that facing traumatic experiences was [is] physically beneficial.

In another one of his studies, Pennebaker and his colleagues visited the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies and did videotaped interviews with more than 60 holocaust survivors. They also took their physiological measurements.Based on the interview, the researchers then classified each survivor as a low, midlevel or high "discloser."

A year later, the high and midlevel dsiclosers were significantly healthier than the low disclosers.

In 1994, a joint study by psychologists and Drake Beam Morin, an outplacement firm, tracked 63 professionals who had been laid off from their jobs for 8 months after they were assigned to one of three writing conditions. In the experimental writing condition, participants were told to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about the layoff and how their lives (personal and professional) had been affected. In the controlled writing condition, the professionals were told to write about their plans for the day and their job search activities. In the no-writing condition, participants weren't given a specific writing instruction.

After 5 consecutive days of 30-minute writing sessions, the researchers began to monitor [the participants'] employment status. Those who wrote about losing their jobs were much more likely to find new ones in the months that followed.

In 1999, Joshua Smyth and Arthur Stone, colleagues at SUNY at Stony Brook tried expanded the research to medical patients. The colleagues assigned asthma and heumatoid arthritis patients to write about the most stressful event of their lives or to write about a neutral topic.

After four months, asthma patients in the experimental group showed improvements in their lung function. Arthritis patients on the other hand, showed a decrease in the severity of their disease. Overall, 47 percent of the patients who wrote about stressful events showed "clinically relevant improvement, compared to only 24 percent of the control group.

Source: Psychology Matters