Disclosure of traumatic experiences is related to health benefits and is central to therapy for individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, neither naturalistic patterns of trauma disclosures nor the outcomes of such disclosures have been established empirically. This article reports the development and preliminary psychometric evaluation of a 16-item instrument assessing characteristics of traumatic event disclosure— inhibition, emotional disclosure, and cognitive disclosure—to spouses. Furthermore, the association between the trauma disclosure of 103 Australian police officers and their adjustment is presented. The disclosure subscales demonstrate adequate internal consistency and also predict several psychological outcomes. Consistent with prior literature, officers who did not discuss their trauma experience experienced more psychological distress and traumatic stress. However, failure to observe benefits for cognitive disclosure is discussed with regard to the role of negative appraisals in PTSD and differences between naturalistic and experimental disclosure.
Alvarez-Conrad, J., Zoellner, L.A., & Foa, E.B. (2001). Linguistic predictors of trauma pathology and physical health. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 15, S159-S170.
2.
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author .
3.
Batten, S.V., Follette, V.M., Rasmussen Hall, M.L., & Palm, K.M. (2002). Physical and psychological effects of written disclosure among sexual abuse survivors. Behavior Therapy , 33, 107-122.
4.
Biddle, D., Elliott, P., Creamer, M., Forbes, D., & Devilly, G.J. (2002). Self-reported problems: A comparison between PTSD-diagnosed veterans, their spouses, and clinicians. Behaviour Research & Therapy, 40, 853-865.
5.
Bolton, E.E., Glenn, D., Orsillo, S., Roemer, L., & Litz, B.T. (2003). The relationship between self-disclosure and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in peacekeepers deployed to Somalia. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 16, 203-210.
6.
Brewer, M.B., & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this “we”? Levels of collective identity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 83—93.
7.
Brown, J., Fielding, J., & Grover, J. (1999). Distinguishing traumatic, vicarious and routine operational stressor exposure and attendant adverse consequences in a sample of police officers. Work and Stress, 13, 312-325.
8.
Buehler, R., Messervey, D., & Griffin, D. (2005). Collaborative planning and prediction: Does group discussion affect optimistic biases in time estimation?Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 47-63.
9.
Carlier, I.V.E., Lamberts, R.D., & Gersons, B.P.R. (1997). Risk factors for posttraumatic stress symptomatology in police officers: A prospective analysis. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 185, 498-506.
10.
Carroll, E.M., Rueger, D.B., Foy, D.W., & Donahoe, C.P. (1985). Vietnam combat veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Analysis of marital and cohabitating adjustment. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 94, 329-337.
11.
Carver, C.S. (2003). Negative affects deriving from the behavioral approach system. Emotion, 4, 3-22.
12.
Cohen, J. (1969). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Academic Press .
13.
Creamer, M., Burgess, P., & McFarlane, A.C. (2001). Post-traumatic stress disorder: Findings from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Well-Being . Psychological Medicine, 31, 1237-1247.
14.
Djikic, M., Chan, I., & Peterson, J.B. (2007). Reducing memory distortions in egoistic self-enhancers: Effects of indirect social facilitation. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 723-731.
15.
Ehlers, A., Maercker, A., & Boos, A. (2000). Posttraumatic stress disorder following political imprisonment: The role of mental defeat, alienation, and perceived permanent change. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109, 45-55.
16.
Finkenauer, C., & Rimé, B. (1998). Socially shared emotional experiences vs. emotional experiences kept secret: Differential characteristics and consequences. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 17, 295-318.
17.
Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., & Friedman, M. J. (Eds.). (2000). Effective treatments for PTSD: Practice guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. New York: Guilford.
18.
Frisina, P.G., Borod, J.C., & Lepore, S.J. (2004). A meta-analysis of the effects of written emotional disclosure on the health outcomes of clinical populations. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 192, 629-634.
19.
Gidron, Y., Peri, T., Connolly, J.F., & Shalev, A.Y. (1996). Written disclosure in posttraumatic stress disorder: Is it beneficial for the patient? Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 184, 505-507.
20.
Goldberg, D., & Williams, P. (1988). A user's guide to the general health questionnaire . Windsor, Hertfordshire, UK: NferNelson .
21.
Gosselin, P., Langlois, F.Freeston, M.H.Ladouceur, R., Dugas, M.J., & Pelletier, O. (2002). The Cognitive Avoidance Questionnaire (CAQ): Development and validation among adult and adolescent samples, Journal de Thérapie Comportementale et Cognitive,12, 24—37.
22.
Greenberg, M.A., Wortman, C.B., & Stone, A.A. (1996). Emotional expression and physical heath: Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation? Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 71, 588-602.
23.
Halligan, S.L., Michael, T., Clark, D.M., & Ehlers, A. (2003). Posttraumatic stress disorder following assault: The role of cognitive processing, trauma memory, and appraisals. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71, 419-431.
24.
Hart, J., Shaver, P.R., & Goldenberg, J.L. (2005). Attachment, self-esteem, worldviews, and terror management: Evidence for a tripartite security system . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 999-1013.
25.
Higgins, E.T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect . Psychological Review, 94, 319-340.
26.
Howard, C., Tuffin, K., & Stephens, C. (2000). Unspeakable emotion: A discursive analysis of police talk about reactions to trauma. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 19, 295-314.
27.
Jostmann, N., Koole, S.L., van der Wulp, N.Y., & Fockenberg, D.A. (2006). Subliminal affect regulation: The moderating role of action vs. state orientation. European Psychologist, 10, 209-217.
28.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The simulation heuristic. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 201-208). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
29.
Kernis, M.H. (2003). Toward a conceptualization of optimal self-esteem . Psychological Inquiry, 14, 1-26.
30.
Kuhl, J. (2000). A functional-design approach to motivation and volition: The dynamics of personality systems interactions. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich , & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Self-regulation: Directions and challenges for future research (pp. 111-169). New York: Academic Press.
31.
Libby, L.K., Eibach, R.P., & Gilovich, T. (2005). Here's looking at me: The effect of memory perspective on assessments of personal change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 50-62.
32.
Manolias, M.B., & Hyatt-Williams, A. (1993). Effects of postshooting experiences on police-authorized firearms officers in the United Kingdom. In J. P. Wilson & B. Raphael (Eds.), International Handbook of Traumatic Stress Syndromes (pp. 385-394). New York: Plenum .
33.
McCafferty, F.L., McCafferty, E., & McCafferty, M.A. (1992). Stress and suicide in police officers: Paradigm of occupational stress. Southern Medical Journal, 85, 233-243.
34.
McFarlane, A.C. (1988). The longitudinal course of posttraumatic morbidity: The range of outcomes and their predictors. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 176(1), 30-39.
35.
Neumann, R. (2000). The causal influences of attributions on emotions: A procedural priming approach. Psychological Science, 11, 179-182.
36.
Nisbett, R. (1980). Human inference. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
37.
Paulhus, D.L. (1998). Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: A mixed blessing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1197-1208.
38.
Pennebaker, J.W. (1989). Confession, inhibition, and disease. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 22, pp. 211-244). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
39.
Pennebaker, J.W. (1993). Putting stress into words: Health, linguistic, and therapeutic implications. Behaviour Research and Therapy , 31, 539-548.
40.
Pennebaker, J.W., & Beall, S.K. (1986). Confronting a traumatic event: Toward an understanding of inhibition and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 95, 274-281.
41.
Pennebaker, J.W., & Francis, M.E. (1996). Cognitive, emotional, and language processes in disclosure. Cognition and Emotion, 10, 601-626.
42.
Pennebaker, J.W., & Graybeal, A. (2001). Patterns of natural language use: Disclosure, personality, and social integration. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 90-93.
43.
Pennebaker, J.W., & Seagal, J.D. (1999). Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative . Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55, 1243-1254.
44.
Pennebaker, J.W., Zech, E., & Rimé, B. (2001). Disclosing and sharing emotion: Psychological, social, and health consequences. In M. S. Stroebe, R. O. Hansson, W. Stroebe, & H. Schut (Eds.), Handbook of bereavement research: Consequences, coping, and care (pp. 517-543). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
45.
Petrie, K.J., Booth, R.J., Pennebaker, J.W., Davison, K.P., & Thomas, M.G. (1995). Disclosure of trauma and immune response to a hepatitis B vaccination program. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63, 787-792.
46.
Schoutrop, M.J.A., Lange, A., Hanewald, G., Davidovich, U., & Salomon, H. (2002). Structured writing and processing major stressful events: A controlled trial. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics , 71, 151-157.
47.
Sloan, D.M., & Marx, B.P. (2004). Taking pen to hand: Evaluating theories underlying the written disclosure paradigm. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11, 121-137.
48.
Smyth, J.M. (1998). Written emotional expression: Effect sizes, outcome types, and moderating variables. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66, 174-184.
49.
Smyth, J.M., Stone, A.A., Hurewitz, A., & Kaell, A. (1999). Effects of writing about stressful experiences on symptom reduction in patients with asthma or rheumatoid arthritis: A randomized trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 281, 1304-1309.
50.
Smyth, J.M., True, N., & Souto, J. (2001). Effects of writing about traumatic experiences: The necessity for narrative structuring. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 20, 161-172.
51.
Ullman, S.E., & Filipas, H.H. (2001). Predictors of PTSD symptom severity and social reactions in sexual assault victims. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 14, 369-389.
52.
Ursano, R.J., Fullerton, C.S., Vance, K., & Wang, L. (2000). Debriefing: Its role in the spectrum of prevention and acute management of psychological trauma. In B. Raphael & J. P. Wilson (Eds.), Psychological debriefing: Theory, practice and evidence (pp. 32-42). New York: Cambridge University Press.
53.
Weathers, F.W., Litz, B.T., Herman, D.S., Huska, J.A., & Keane, T.M. (1993, October). The PTSD Checklist (PCL): Reliability, validity, and diagnostic utility. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies , San Antonio, TX.
54.
Wegner, D.M., Wenzlaff, R.M., & Kozak, M. (2004). The return of suppressed thoughts in dreams. Psychological Science, 15, 232-236.
