Research

Transforming Conflict
Trauma, Spirituality and Ethics, and Creative Arts Therapies
Write Life
About Embodied Disclosure Therapy (EDT)

Embodied disclosure therapy (EDT) is a new therapeutic approach to healing moral injury that integrates body awareness into the writing process, something that appears to have not been used in other writing therapies or as a primary mode of treatment for moral injury. EDT was purposefully developed to overcome the challenges of expressive writing and other exposure-based writing therapies that use fast-paced, explosive, “let-it-all-go” writing, which have been shown to cause agitation, overwhelm, or retraumatization in certain populations. EDT is adapted from somatic therapy/Somatic Experiencing© (Levine, 2012) and other writing therapies, such as written disclosure therapy (WET; Sloan & Marx, 2017).

Conceptually, EDT stems from my belief that there may be a somatic dimension of moral injury not addressed by extant evidenced-based frontline therapies or novel cognitive approaches but possibly amenable to access through felt senses or other somatic modalities. Until now, the felt sense or somatic experience of moral injury has been largely ignored in both research and treatment, instead favoring cognitive-behavioral applications, despite low efficacy rates. Also, from my belief that writing may be especially valuable for people with moral injury given its nonverbal nature. EDT is a brief six-session intervention that is cost-efficient and requires little clinical intervention compared with other therapeutic approaches.

The original EDT project was part of my dissertation research. This allowed me the time to develop the approach, write a treatment guide and script, and conduct both pilot studies and a broader controlled study. Positive initial results of these studies suggest that EDT may be an innovative and effective therapy for moral injury. If so, it could expand access to care for those suffering with moral injury and reduce cost to providers given the brief number of sessions.

Resources

Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma: The innate capacity to transform overwhelming experiences. North Atlantic Books.

Levine, P. A. (2010). In an unspoken voice: How the body releases trauma and restores goodness. North Atlantic Books.

Sloan, D. M., Marx, B. P., Bovin, M. J., Feinstein, B. A., & Gallagher, M. W. (2012). Written exposure as an intervention for PTSD: A randomized clinical trial with motor vehicle accident survivors, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 50(10), 627–635. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2012.07.001

Research: Embodied Disclosure Therapy: Writing From a Place of Safety and Connection: A Novel Approach to Moral Injury.