Effect of mode and audience of emotional disclosure on clinical depression

Numerous studies has shown that disclosing stress-related thoughts and feelings diminishes the negative impacts of stressful events and improves health. These studies, however, do not determine sufficiently the mechanisms whereby emotional disclosure produces these effects. Further, most of these studies have utilized psychologically healthy participants. In particular, there have been no studies involving clinically depressed participants. Moreover, previous research has not investigated features of emotional disclosure that enhance health outcomes and facilitate underlying mechanisms and most of this research even demonstrates serious methodological problems. Therefore, the aims of the current study are to determine the possible explanation for the effects of emotional disclosure on depressive symptoms, whether emotional disclosure is effective for participants who virtually depressed, and the features of emotional disclosure that produce the maximum reduction of depressive symptoms. [Continues.]