Written Exposure Therapy to Improve Lives After Stress Exposure

WISE consists of five weekly sessions. At session one, the therapist will provide psychoeducation about PTSD, rationale for the proposed intervention, and then instructions for writing about their traumatic experience during each session. Psychoeducation and treatment rationale are scripted to ensure consistency. The participant will be instructed to write about the same trauma memory (their recent MVC) during each session. They will be asked to look back at the event and write for 30 minutes about the details of the event including what they saw, heard, felt, smelled, etc. without regard for spelling or grammar. The participant will self-report SUDs levels to the therapist at the beginning and end of each session. After 30 minutes, the therapist will ask the participant to stop writing, review the experience of writing and discuss as needed, and conclude the session. Therapists will collect the written narrative described above.

Following randomization, the first session for the control writing condition will be conducted as follows, which is detailed in a structured manual for therapists. The therapist will read instructions for writing about non-emotional topics. The participant will be instructed to describe what they did yesterday from the time they woke up until the time they went to bed, as objectively as possible, without regard for spelling or grammar. The therapist will then leave the participant with a written version of the instructions for 30 minutes while the participant writes. As discussed, the participant will self-report Subjective Unites of Distress Scale (SUDS) levels to the therapist at the beginning and end of each session. After 30 minutes, the therapist will ask the participant to stop writing, review the experience of writing and discuss as needed, and conclude the session. Therapists will collect the written narrative described above.