RESILIENCE
The term ‘Resilience’ as a psychological construct was first used in the developmental
literature to describe the ability to overcome negative childhood experiences.
In recent years it has gained popularity in adult psychology in the context of loss
and other traumatic events (Bonanno, 2012) and like the other approaches discussed
above is linked to the growth in more positive approaches in psychology and the move
away from an emphasis on negative well-being outcomes. It has spawned a complex
COPING AND SOCIAL SUPPORT 103variables (e.g. personality and previous experience of trauma) and by the
characteristics of the writing task (e.g. time spent writing, instructions received)
(Frattaroli, 2006; Merz, Fox and Malcarne, 2014; Nazarian and Smyth, 2013). In
addition, in some cases, the beneficial effects of writing may only be observed
when using more sensitive and subtle outcome measures such as implicit
measures that are not contaminated by self-report bias or expectations (O’Connor
et al., 2011a).
How does emotional writing influence health? Several mechanisms have been
suggested. For example, writing may reduce the cumulative physiological drain of
not confronting upsetting experiences or facilitate cognitive processing of traumatic
memories, which in turn leads to affective and physiological change. One of the
current mechanisms proposed to account for the positive effects of emotional
disclosure involves exposure and cognitive processing (Sloan and Marx, 2004). By
accessing the emotions, feelings and cognitions linked to a stressful or traumatic
event, memory begins to be restructured. Through such restructuring the individual
assimilates the stressor into their own self-schema and beliefs system, becomes
aware of the associated feelings and considers methods of coping with the
traumatic or stressful encounter.
An important line of work has concentrated on understanding the psychological
processes associated with the beneficial effects of emotional disclosure. For
example, Creswell et al.(2007) content analysed the essays of early-stage cancer
survivors and showed that essays that included self-affirmation writing (i.e.
evidence that an important personal value was affirmed as a result of their cancer)
were associated with fewer physical symptoms at 3 months’ follow-up. In other
work, O’Connor and Ashley (2008) have explored the importance of the emotional
characteristics of disclosure essays together with the alexithymic personality trait.
Using the computer programme, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), they
found that alexithymic participants who disclosed more negative emotion words
compared to positive emotion words exhibited reduced blood pressure responses
to stress two weeks after writing. Yet non-alexithymic participants who disclosed
more positive and less negative emotion words displayed reduced blood pressure
responses to stress.