Research on Positive Recovery Journaling | Positive Recovery Journaling Counselor Research Study

What were the results of research on PRJ?

Our pilot studies of PRJ have produced the following findings:

Our first study (Krentzman et al., 2022), conducted among 15 women in residential treatment for substance use disorders, showed that:

While completing PRJ, participants experienced significant improvement in satisfaction with life, happiness with recovery, depression, well-being, reward probability, and confidence in the ability to remain abstinent from drugs and alcohol
On a scale of 0-10, with 10 representing high levels, participants gave PRJ high ratings for being easy (8.6), satisfying (8.0), pleasant (7.9), and helpful (8.0) and low ratings for being difficult (1.6)
Participants emphasized two main benefits from PRJ:
- PRJ helped them to realize that more good things than bad things happened in a day and
- PRJ served as a simple planner, which reminded the participants to do things that were important and meaningful to them. When they were reminded in this way, the participants acted to accomplish a range of recovery-supportive behaviors

Our second study was a study of individuals in treatment for substance use disorder and the results are being analyzed now. This study was a randomized controlled trial, so it had a treatment group that learned PRJ and a control group that completed surveys. Our preliminary findings show that:

PRJ is more satisfying, helpful, and satisfying, but no more difficult, than filling out a survey (Krentzman et al., 2023)
PRJ appears helpful especially to clients in their first 90 days of sobriety
While practicing PRJ and even one month later stopping PRJ, compared to a control group, participants showed improvement in negative affect, flourishing, satisfaction with life, urges, happiness with recovery, confidence staying sober, the perception that life in recovery is better than life in active addiction, and anxiety

Please click here to read more about the current study and take the eligibility survey.

Please email us with any questions you might have at [email protected]

References

Krentzman, A. R., Hoeppner, B. B., Hoeppner, S. S., & Barnett, N. P. (2022). Development, feasibility, acceptability, and impact of a positive psychology journaling intervention. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2070531

Krentzman, A. R., Hoeppner, S. S., Hoeppner, B. B., & Barnett, N. P. (2023, June). Journaling to support recovery from alcohol and other substance use disorders: Feasibility results from a randomized controlled pilot [Poster Presentation]. Research Society on Alcohol, Bellevue, WA.