^{Return to note 21} When Gray & Lombardo (2001) screened participants, their packets were identified only by code numbers. On a detachable sheet at the end of the packet, were the code and a permission slip obtaining contact information if they expressed willingness to participate in a future study (of the writing protocol). Participants “wrote alone in a room and were give strong assurances of confidentiality” (p. S182), being told their written trauma descriptions “would remain sealed [in an envelope] until all participants had completed the study” (p. S177). The researchers do not say what identifying codes were placed on the envelope or with the narrative, if any.

^{Return to note 22} Yehuda’s (2002) conservative report of estimated PTSD prevalence rates of “5 to 6% of [all] men and 10 to 14% of [all] women” (p. 109) suggest that as many as one man and two or three women in a class of 20 to 22 composition students may have PTSD. These numbers do not take into consideration higher concentrations of PTSD that may be present among urban populations or populations that have experienced a local natural disaster. Nor does this number capture the range and severity of trauma undergraduate students report having experienced in order to qualify for many of the psychological experiments studying, not only PTSD, but rather the effect of writing about trauma on the physical health of experimental populations who were either deeply distressed or met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. In an early Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser (1988) study, undergraduate students who were asked to write about “the most traumatic experience of your entire life” wrote about events such as coming to college, conflicts associated with members of the opposite sex, parental problems, death of a significant other, injury or illness including eating disorders and substance abuse, sexual abuse by a family member or stranger, thoughts of suicide, and public humiliation. In a later Pennebaker study, participants “who tended to come from upper-middle class backgrounds … [reported] “rape, family violence, suicide attempts, drug problems and other horrors” (Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999, p. 1245). In the Sloan and Marx (2004) study of 49 undergraduate women with PTSD taking “an introductory psychology course at a large, urban university” (Recruitment and Retention section, ¶ 1), experimental and control participants with an average age of 18.9 years reported experiencing traumatic events (many reported 2-5 events) such as motor vehicle accidents, fires, or explosions; natural disaster, nonsexual assault by a family member, acquaintance, or stranger; sexual assault by a family member, acquaintance, or stranger; child sexual abuse; incarceration; and terminal illness (Participants section, ¶ 1, Table 1). These few reports offer only a glimpse into the depth of trauma with which students can enter the composition classroom.