Effects of written emotional disclosure on implicit self-esteem and body image.

Objectives: Negative body image has a significant impact on self-esteem, disordered eating, and general health. Writing about distressing events and experiences has been found to have beneficial effects on psychological and physical health outcomes. This study investigated whether a written self-disclosure intervention, compared to a writing about body image success stories (WSS) intervention, had beneficial effects on self-esteem and body image.

Design And Methods: One hundred and fifty-eight women (aged 18-22 years) were allocated to either: written emotional disclosure (WED); WSS; or a control, non-emotional writing condition. All measures were completed at baseline and at follow-up 4 weeks later.

Results: A condition by time interaction was observed for implicit self-esteem, such that levels of self-esteem were improved 4 weeks later in the WED condition. Implicit self-esteem was also found to be greater following WED compared to the control condition, but not following WSS.

Conclusions: This is the first study to demonstrate that WED has beneficial effects on implicit outcome measures such as self-esteem indicating that the positive effects of expressive writing may initially operate by influencing automatically activated attitudes towards the self. The impact of WED on implicit self-esteem may have implications for future health.