In “Writing Your Way To Happiness”, Parker-Pope (2015) presents a series of research studies to highlight the benefits that people can gain from expressive writing. One of the benefits of expressive writing is that it helps to alleviate conflict between married couples. A research study was done on 120 married couples where they had to write about their conflict from a third-party perspective. The outcome showed an improvement in family relations among couples who engages in expressive writing as opposed to those who did not.
While the author (Parker-Pope, 2015) mentions that writing allows the writer to express his troubles and reconstruct his thoughts, it does not always result in a desirable outcome. This is because expressive writing allows him to freely express his thoughts, which may include his disgust toward the other party. In the case of a married couple, the wife, for instance, might write down all the negative attitudes and characteristics of her husband throughout their marriage life. Looking at all the unfavourable attitudes of her husband that she has written might only add on to her disgust towards her husband instead of alleviating the conflict. The tension between the couple would escalate if both the husband and wife frequently write about the negativity of their spouse. Therefore, instead of encouraging the couples to reconstruct their thoughts, it agitates their feelings toward their spouse and prolongs the conflict.
Furthermore, the process of writing might be seen as a hassle to couples who in conflict. According to Parker-Pope (2015), expressive writing is about writing and rewriting. This suggest that writing is not a one-off activity and it requires discipline, time and effort in order for us to gain its benefit. However, when facing a conflict, our emotions and moods are affected. Emotions play a critical role in our decision making. When the state of our emotions are unstable, it will affect our behaviour and result in poor decision-making (Lamia, 2010). This hinders us from achieving a meaningful outcome from expressive writing since our mind is not in the state of tranquility. Since writing requires a certain amount of disciplin and time, couples might do something else to divert their attention away from the conflict, such as watching movies or engage in physical activities, instead of engaging in expressive writing.
In addition to that, writing only helps to ease a conflict temporarily. Expressive writing enables the couple to express their problems such that it acts as a coping mechanism for them (Parker-Pope, 2015). However, these coping mechanism is only effective in the short run. As long as the couple do not take practical measures to improve their marital happiness, their conflict will not subside. If they do not address the root cause of their conflict, even if they engage in expressive writing, their conflict will persist in the long run.
In conclusion, there is no perfect and absolute mechanism that would best resolve conflicts within married couples. Expressive writing would be more effective in coping with these conflicts only if certain conditions are met. This includes regulating and controlling what is being written in order to avoid undesirable emotions. Also, couples should take additional measures beside writing so as to achieve an optimal outcome when dealing with a conflict.
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References:
Lamia, M. (31 December, 2010). Like it Or Not, Emotions Will Drive the Decisions You Make Today. From Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201012/it-or-not-emotions-will-drive-the-decisions-you
Parker-Pope, T. (2015, February 12). Writing your way to happiness [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/writing-your-way-to-happiness/?_r=0
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