The Use of Written Expression of Emotion Paradigm as a Tool to Reduce Stress among Indian International Students

Abstract

The written emotional disclosure procedure, developed by Pennebaker and Beall in 1986, has been used as a therapeutic tool since its conception. The very act of getting the participants to write about the most traumatic or stressful events of their lives for about 20 minutes, over a period of three consecutive days, has resulted in improvements on measures of physical and psychological well-being. The objective of this study was to determine whether the written emotional disclosure procedure could be used as a tool to reduce stress among international university students. Baseline measures of perceived stress, alexithymia and limbic languidness of the participants were measured before and after the writing intervention procedure. The investigation found evidence to support the hypothesis that the written emotional expression procedure could be used as a tool to reduce perceived stress among university students. However, recommending the use of this method as a lone intervention still seems a little premature.