Research on the self-treatment of ‘Writer’s Block’ is vast and diversified. You might enjoy reading these articles, they are a fun and fast read. Please, do pay attention to the notes on them. My critical appraisal on the research about ‘Writter’s Block’ may be found at the end of this post.

1974 – the classical CASE REPORT by Dennis Upper:

• Upper, Dennis (Fall 1974), “The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block””, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 7 (3): 497, doi:10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a PDF Here

1983 – a REPLICATION study is performed by Molloy:

• Molloy, G. N. (1983). The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block”: A replication. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 57(2), 566-566. PDF Here

1984 – a new REPLICATION, however it partially failed, by Hermann:

• Hermann, B. P. (1984). Unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block”: a partial failure to replicate. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 58(2), 350-350. PDF Here

1984 – a first REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE on the topic. Still, it was a narrative literature review, we have to wait until 2014 for the first systematic review and meta-analysis

• Olson, K. R. (1984). Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of “Writer’s Block”: A Review of the Literature. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 59(1), 158–158. doi:10.2466/pms.1984.59.1.158 PDF Here

1985 – a CLINICAL TRIAL by Skinner:

• Skinner, N. F., Perlini, A. H., Fric, L., Werstine, E. P., & Calla, J. (1985). The Unsuccessful Group-Treatment of “Writer’s Block”. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 61(1), 298-298. PDF Here

1996 – a COHORT study by Skinner:

• Skinner, N. F., & Perlini, A. H. (1996). The unsuccessful group treatment of “writer’s block”: a ten-year follow-up. Perceptual and motor skills, 82(1), 138-138. PDF Here

2007 – a MULTICENTER REPLICATION study, an attempt to address statistical power issues by Didden:

• Didden, R., Sigafoos, J., O’Reilly, M. F., Lancioni, G. E., & Sturmey, P. (2007). A multisite cross‐cultural replication of upper’s (1974) unsuccessful self‐treatment of writer’s block. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 40(4), 773-773. PDF Here

2014 – an evidence synthesis in a META-ANALYSIS by McLean:

• McLean, D. C., & Thomas, B. R. (2014). Unsuccessful treatments of “Writer’s Block”: a meta-analysis. Psychological reports, 115(1), 276-278. PDF Here

 

After systematic and iterative readings on the ‘Writer’s Block’ scientific literature my critical appraisal is

 

 

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If you have updates on this topic, please let me know

Acknowlegements: to Professor Pedro Lopes dos Santos and Professor Isabel Menezes for sharing with me several ideas on “Writer’s Block” and useful literature about it. I would like to say to them tha