Skip Navigation

Institution: CLOCKSS Sign In as Personal Subscriber

Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Advance Access originally published online on August 3, 2007
Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 2007 7(3):176-183; doi:10.1093/brief-treatment/mhm012
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
7/3/176    most recent
mhm012v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Konig, A.
Right arrow Articles by Kirkhart, M. W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Konig, A.
Right arrow Articles by Kirkhart, M. W.
Social Bookmarking
 Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Content of Disclosure and Health: Autonomic Response to Talking About a Stressful Event

   Andrea Konig, MA
   Jeffrey Lating, PhD
   Matthew W. Kirkhart, PhD

From the Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (Konig) and Department of Psychology, Loyola College in Maryland, Baltimore (Lating, Kirkhart)

Contact author: Andrea Konig, Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, 810 West Franklin Street, Richmond, VA 23220. E-mail: koniga{at}vcu.edu.

The study examined physiological and psychological changes associated with the content of disclosure of a stressful event. A total of 60 students were assigned to either an emotion and facts or a facts-only disclosure condition. Each participant talked about a highly stressful personal event for 5–10 min, while skin conductance was recorded. Measures of negative mood were assessed before and after disclosure. In the emotions and facts condition, skin conductance significantly decreased, whereas the facts-only condition showed no significant change. Sadness and guilt significantly increased from before to after disclosure in both conditions. Including emotional content in verbal disclosure of a highly stressful event may decrease physiological arousal, whereas sadness and guilt may increase whether emotional content is included or not. The findings have implications for applied areas of consultation-liaison services and early crisis intervention.

KEY WORDS: verbal disclosure, skin conductance, emotional expression, stressful events


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.