Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Venting = Bad?

For those of us looking to become psychologists, it has long been our belief that we and those around us should talk about whats bugging us. Bad day at work? Let me hear it. Why are you crying? Tell me all about it. My mom's in the hospital, can I ring your ear? But a survey conducted by Seery has found some interesting results. On September11, 2001 Seery sent out an invitation to participants already inrolled to recieve surveys to vent on their feelings of the event. The report was set up to mimick a therapists session with a patient and follow up reports were sent outover the next two years to track progress. What was determined was that those who initially responded to the survey were more likely to suffer from PTS (post traumatic stress) than those who did not initially respond. It is hypothesized that those who did not initially talk are more resilient than those who felt the need to vent, but what if talking about it makes us relive it over and over again? What about those sent to therapy after tragic events, are we doing more harm than good?

http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/06/venting-emotions-after-trauma-predicts.php

3 comments:

  1. I found this article to be very interesting, and I was surprised to read that people who responded about traumatic events had a higher tendency towards PTSD. I have always thought that talking to anybody during a stressful time was the best thing to do, and this article suggests that its the WORST! Perhaps "venting" is more than just blowing off steam, perhaps in order for it to be effective, one needs to "vent" to someone they are already close to. I would be interested in reading the whole article, because I did find some of the conclusions hard to believe, and I though their description of the surveys and data collected was somewhat vague. But if the results are accurate, it would dispel what they called the "pressure cooker" state of emotions (emotions build and build and build until someone explodes figuratively), something I thought was true too. This was a very interesting article.

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  2. i completely agree. i dont like for everyone to know my traumatic life experiences i dont think it makes them better to talk about. i hate the poor pity feeling that i get when explaining to someone certain things that might need to be explained so i am more of a dont ask dont tell kind of person. also my friends usually try to give advice or their input and that is not what i need or want. i am a psych major and dont really need their opinion just someone to talk to sometimes. thats why i have one friend that i can always go to if i need to talk; she never judges me or even talks or gives her opinion unless i ask what she thinks. she is mostly quite and that helps a lot more then people always trying to give advice or judging you or spreading what you tell them to other people.

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