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INTERVENTION:
AN OPEN LETTER
Erin Dailey
Bridgewater State University
Training Intentions
◦ Audience: School Counselors (grades 6-12)
http://jasonfoundation.
com/prp/facts/youth-
suicide-statistics/
What is Free Association Writing?
◦ Psychoanalytic Therapy
◦ Students will be asked to share what
comes to mind, regardless of content or
appropriate thoughts (Free Association,
2015).
◦ Developed by Freud
◦ “Stated it gave clients complete freedom
to examine their thoughts without
prompting…by the therapist” (Free
Association, 2015).
How Does it Work?
◦ It does NOT serve as a resistance source, however it is serves as a creative way for
students to express themselves rather than a destructive way (Farber, 2005).
◦ “Writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events has been found to result in
improvements in both physical and psychological health, in non-clinical and clinical
populations” (Baikie & Wihelm, 2005).
◦ Baikie and Wihelm reported:
◦ 1986 study- college students wrote 15 min for 4 days about a traumatic experience
◦ Controls wrote about superficial topics
◦ Traumatic experienced students reported significant benefits – objectively assess and self-
reported physical health 4 months later
◦ Less visits to health center
◦ Short-term increases in physiological arousal and long-term decreases in health problems
(Pennebaker & Beall, 1986).
Example Letter
• Talked to suicide as if it was a
person
◦ http://www.sprc.org/
◦ https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/talk-
to-someone-now/
References
◦ Baikie, K. A., & Wilhelm, K. (2005, September 01). Emotional and physical health benefits
of expressive writing. Retrieved June 14, 2017, from
http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/11/5/338.
◦ Farber, S. K. (2005). Free Association Reconsidered: The Talking Cure, The Writing
Cure. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis & Dynamic
Psychiatry, 33(2), 249-273. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
◦ Free Association. (2015, August 07). Retrieved June 14, 2017, from
http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/free-association-in-therapy.
◦ Pennebaker, J. W. & Beall, S. K. (1986) Confronting a traumatic event. Toward an
understanding of inhibition and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95, 274–281.
◦ Youth Suicide Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved June 14, 2017, from
http://jasonfoundation.com/prp/facts/youth-suicide-statistics/