Psychology and Health, 2002, Vol. 17, No. 5, pp. 547–560 MENDING BROKEN HEARTS: EFFECTS OF EXPRESSIVE WRITING ON MOOD, COGNITIVE PROCESSING, SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT AND HEALTH FOLLOWING A RELATIONSHIP BREAKUP STEPHEN J. LEPORE a, * and MELANIE A. GREENBERG b a Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University, Thorndike Hall, Box 114, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA b Clinical Psychology, Alliant International University, 10455 Pomerado Rd., San Diego, CA 92131, USA Seventy-twomaleand73femaleundergraduateswererandomlyassignedtoanexperimentalgroup,inwhich they wrote expressively about a relationship breakup, or to a control group, in which they wrote in a non- emotional manner about impersonal relationship topics. Control participants reported short-term increases in upper respiratory illness (URI) symptoms, tension and fatigue, whereas experimental participants did not. Further, higher levels of intrusive thoughts and avoidance were associated with short-term increases in URI symptoms in the control group, but were unrelated to URI symptoms in the experimental group. Finally, there was a trend ( p<0.06) suggesting that experimental participants were more likely to reunite with their ex-partner than were control participants. These findings indicate that expressive writing has a widerangeofsocial,emotional,andphysicalhealthbenefitsforindividualscopingwithstressfulevents,par- ticularly if they are experiencing ongoing intrusive thoughts and avoidance responses related to the stressor. Keywords: Expressive writing; Emotional expression; Intrusive thoughts; Avoidance; Social adjustment; Upper respiratory illness The ability to freely express stress-related thoughts and feelings appears to reduce the negative mental and physical health effects of stressful life events (Smyth, 1998). While individuals often choose to disclose to significant others (Rime´, 1995), for vari- ous reasons this is not always feasible or advised (Lepore et al., 1996). Non-social modesofexpression,suchasexpressivewriting,maybeparticularlyusefulforindivid- uals who feel constrained in disclosing to members of their social network. Expressive writing also provides a convenient method for individuals to confront and work through unresolved feelings and thoughts related to stressful events. In this article, *Corresponding author. E-mail: lepore@tc.columbia.edu ISSN 0887-0446 print: ISSN 1476-8321 online ß 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/08870440290025768