Contrasting narratives: a randomised control study comparing Conflict Analysis and narrative disclosure.

This online randomised controlled study evaluates benefits associated with structured topic-focussed narrative writing tasks versus unstructured narrative writing tasks, monitoring to what extent tasks impact well-being, psychopathology and satisfaction. Participants were randomised to structured topic-focussed or unstructured narrative writing conditions. Structured condition consisted of Conflict Analysis (CA), a self-guided narrative-based therapeutic assessment. Unstructured conditions consisted of narrative disclosure tasks about traumatic experiences. Both conditions consisted of ten 20-minute tasks completed within one week. One hundred and three participants completed baseline measures. Eighty-two participants completed two-week follow-up measures. Repeated measure ANOVA and t-tests were used to evaluate differences over time. Follow-up data suggest that CA participants had significantly improved outcomes when compared to narrative disclosure participants. Evidence supports continued structured narrative writing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]