Reader Response Draft 2

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 for 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 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 includes his disgust toward the other party. In the case of 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 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. This prolongs the conflict between the couple and consensus would be hard to achieve. A mediator might need to intervene during the process of writing in order to guide and assist the couple.

Furthermore, the process of writing might be seen as a burden to couples who already have so many things to manage. Writing requires discipline, time and effort in order for us to gain its benefit. However, when facing a conflict, we usually do not think rationally and therefore our actions are reckless. This hinders us from achieving a meaningful outcome from expressive writing since our mind is not in the state of tranquility. Writing also requires a certain amount of time, which we better spend the time doing something else. For instance, couples who are in a conflict would better off be doing something that divert their attention from thinking about the conflict such as watching movies or engage in physical activities as opposed to writing. 

In addition to that, writing only helps to temporarily ease the problems that married couples face. Expressive writing enables the couple to express their problems such that it acts as a coping mechanism for them. 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 would not subside. For instance, if a couple who are facing with conflicts does not try to solve the root cause of their conflict, even if they engage in expressive writing, their conflict will persist in the long run. Their conflict would be worse if both the husband and wife uses expressive writing as a platform to mock their spouse and rant their anger severely.

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.