Geoff W. Sutton Blog: Gratitude Letters and Psychological Health

Can the practice of gratitude actually improve mental health?

Many studies extol the benefits of expressing gratitude. What’s different about this study by Joel Wong and his colleagues are the participants. All of them were psychotherapy patients. The research question: Would gratitude writing add value to psychotherapy?

The patients

All 293 volunteers were young adults having an average age of 22 and the youngest were age 18. Most were women (65%). And most identified as “White/European.” They were seeking psychotherapy services at a university.

The plan

The researchers randomly assigned the patients to one of three groups.

1. Gratitude Letter writing and Psychotherapy. In three gratitude sessions, the participants wrote letters of thanks to people—most wrote to friends, mothers, and fathers. They had the option to send their letters or not—23% sent a letter.

2. Expressive Writing and Psychotherapy. In their sessions, the expressive writing group wrote about the most stressful and upsetting experiences.

3. Psychotherapy only. These participants only received psychotherapy and thus served as a comparison group.

The Assessment

Assessment Times

The participants completed a measure of mental health at 4 different times.

1. Before treatment then at intervals after the final writing session-

2. One week after

3. Four weeks after

4. Twelve weeks after

Assessment Measures

1. Behavioral Health Measure-20. This survey measures wellbeing, clinical symptoms, and life functioning.

2. Language analysis. This software (Linguistic Inquiry Word Count) developed by James Pennebaker and others analyses the language people use. The researchers focused on words related to mental health thus, expressions of positive and negative emotions.

3. Gratitude Questionnaire-6

What Happened?

At weeks 4 and 12, patients in the gratitude writing group reported better mental health compared to those in the other groups.

The improvement in mental health was better after 12 weeks compared to 4 weeks.

See the article for details.

Comments

No study is perfect or universally applicable. The authors addressed limitations in their article.

As the authors suggest, psychotherapists may want to consider the value of adding gratitude letters as homework. Of course, this intervention must be based on the suitability of a gratitude letter.

We now have one more study supporting the value of expressing gratitude. It’s noteworthy that we may benefit from writing a letter even if we do not actually send it. Gratitude letters may actually bless us! Of course, that can be helpful when writing to someone whom we cannot locate or who has died. Some people may not even remember us.

I would hypothesize that religious people who express gratitude to God in prayer may be capturing a blessing for themselves. Perhaps it is even stronger for those who write their prayers as if writing a letter to God.

Gratitude- Read More

Count Your Blessings: A Gratitude Experiment

Grateful People: The Big 12 – Psychology of Gratitude

Measuring Gratitude - The Gratitude Questionnaire- 6

Cite this post (APA)

Sutton, G. W. (2022, November 13). Gratitude letters and psychological health. Geoff W. Sutton Blog. Retrieved from https://geoffwsutton.blogspot.com/2022/11/gratitude-letters-and-psychological.html

Sharing ideas

#gratitude #gratitudeletters #positivepsychology

Reference

Wong, Y. J., Owen, J., Gabana, N.T., Brown, J.W. Mcinnis, S., Toth, P. & Gilman, L. (2016): Does gratitude writing improve the mental health of psychotherapy clients? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial, Psychotherapy Research, 28, (2) 1-11.

Resources

Living Well: 10 Big Ideas of Faith and a Meaningful Life. Buy on AMAZON