Use of Expressive Writing in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

Expressive writing involves writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events. Expressive writing, for as little as 3-5 sessions of 20 minutes, has been found to improve both physical and psychological health based on health outcome measures such as number of doctor's visits and hospital days, blood pressure control, lung and immune function, and pain. Given its simplicity, and obvious advantages in terms of cost efficiency, expressive writing appears to have great potential as a therapeutic tool or as a means of self-help, either alone or as an adjunct to traditional therapies. This modality has not been studied in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a common gastrointestinal condition, which is lacking well-defined etiology or treatments and is best understood in a biopsychosocial context.