‘Not like rose-tinted glasses… like taking a pair of dirty glasses off’: A pilot intervention using positive emotions in expressive writing

Studies conducted in various contexts and with varied populations have found expressive writing enhances physical and psychological wellbeing. This pilot intervention study countered the predominantly quantitative evidence by adopting a qualitative methodology, exploring the experience of using positive emotions in expressive writing. Participants (n = 10), who all had previous experience in expressive writing, were asked to select one of ten positive emotion cards (PECs) each day for three days. Participants were then asked to write expressively through the ‘lens’ of their chosen emotion. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and experiences were evaluated using Thematic Analysis. The results identified two main themes that compared the experience of expressive writing both with and without the PECs. The first theme, Processing (without the PECs) contained three sub-themes: sense of relief, habitual perspective and reactive to experience. The second main theme, Progressing (with the PECs) contained three different sub-themes: sense of direction, changed perspective and interactive with experience. This study found that, for expressive writers, positive emotions may function in three ways: to relate to others or self-expand, to move past challenges cognitively or change unconstructive perspectives, and finally as a way to interactively link or ‘bridge’ from the written subject matter to constructive action, thus breaking cycles of reactive writing and rumination. Implications of the study on the practice of expressive writing and its potential as a positive psychology intervention (PPI) are discussed.

Rethinking What is Necessary in a Democratic Society: Militant Democracy and the Turkish State

Questions relating to contemporary understandings of democracy continue to preoccupy the academic landscape, from politics to law—how does one define democracy; is it necessary to recalibrate the concept of democracy to meet the exigencies of the current global security "crisis" and, following from this, how does one understand (and control) the democratic relationship of representation and accountability between citizen and state? Although those writing on the recalibration of democratic theory come from different points of departure, they often arrive at a similar conclusion; namely that this global era poses significant challenges to contemporary understandings of democracy. This article identifies and focuses on one challenge posed by the concept of “militant” democracy against the backdrop of the Turkish case.