The current study tested the effectiveness of a brief expressive writing intervention on the marital adjustment of 102 military couples recently reunited following a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Active duty soldiers and their spouses were randomly assigned to write about either their relationship or a nonemotional topic on 3 occasions on a single day. The resulting design included 4 couple-level writing topic conditions: soldier-expressive/spouse-expressive, soldier-expressive/spouse-control, soldier-control/spouse-expressive, and soldier-control/spouse-control. Participants completed marital adjustment measures before writing, 1 month, and 6 months after writing. When soldiers, but not spouses, did expressive writing, couples increased in marital satisfaction over the next month, particularly if the soldier had had high combat exposure.
A Postdeployment Expressive Writing Intervention for Military Couples: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Type
Summary
Citation
Baddeley, J. L., Pennebaker, J. W. (2011). A Postdeployment Expressive Writing Intervention for Military Couples: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 24, 581-585. doi:10.1002/jts.20679