According to the book 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman, venting to another person may not be as helpful in easing emotional pain as one might hope.
A study was carried out at the University of Louvain in Belgium (by Emmanuelle Zech and Bernard Rime) to investigate the helpfulness of talking about negative experiences. Participants in the study were asked to think of "the most negative upsetting emotional event in their life, one they still thought about and still needed to talk about." The participants were divided into two groups. The first group was asked to discuss this negative event with a supportive experimenter while the second group was asked to talk about a far more mundane topic. After one week and again after two months the participants completed questionnaires intended to help measure their emotional well-being. Although the participants that talked about the negative experiences had thought it was beneficial, the questionnaire results suggested that it had no more of an impact than discussing mundane experiences.
So maybe sometimes talking about things really is just a waste of time? However, we know that suppressing emotions isn't usually helpful either. So what if instead of talking about the experience we wrote about it?
59 Seconds describes another experiment as follows:
"In several studies participants who have experienced a traumatic event have been encouraged to spend just a few minutes a day writing a diary-type account of their deepest thoughts and feelings about it...Although these types of exercises were both speedy and simple, the results revealed that participants experienced a remarkable boost in their psychological and physical well-being, including a reduction in health problems and an increase in self-esteem and happiness."
How does this makes sense? Wiseman suggests that it is a result of the difference between thinking and writing and concludes that "Thinking can often be somewhat unstructured, disorganized, and even chaotic. In contrast, writing encourages the creation of a story line and structure that help people make sense of what has happened and work toward a solution. In short, talking can add to a sense of confusion, but writing provides a more systematic, solution-based approach."
I think that Wiseman makes a good point. However, this did make me think about how the results might differ for varying personality types. For example, would introverts gain more from the writing exercise than extroverts? Would creative types benefit more? Please share your thoughts, I'd love to hear them!
