In the aftermath of the 9/11 disaster, we must all deal with our feelings of loss, helplessness and fear. There is converging evidence that expressive writing can help individuals cope with stressful and traumatic events, and even brief interventions can have beneficial effects. Specifically, individual who are better able to create a coherent and emotionally cohesive account of what happened, through the use of cognitive processing (e.g., understand, realize, comprehend) and emotion words show improved physical and psychological health. Therefore we implemented such an intervention with a group of Emory college undergraduates. Within a few weeks of 9/11, students completed a series of questionnaires assessing their attitudes, beliefs and feelings about the tragedy. They were then asked to write in a journal for 5 consecutive days about their deepest thoughts and feelings about the events of 9/11. Students returned after one month and again after 6 months to again complete a series of questionnaires about their thoughts, attitudes and feelings.

Initial findings indicate that individuals who had higher personal involvement in the events of 9/11, through knowing someone who was killed or having lived in the affected areas, recalled being more shocked and upset upon hearing the news across time, and used fewer cognitive processing and positive emotion words in their narratives, than those with no direct involvement. Individuals who used more cognitive processing and emotion words in their narratives subsequently recalled being less shocked and upset upon hearing the news. We are now exploring implications of these finding for emotional memory and emotional regulation.

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References

Fivush, R., Edwards, V.J., & Mennuti-Washburn, J. (2003). Narratives of 9/11: Relations among personal involvement, narrative content and memory of the emotional impact over time. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 1099-1111