Speaking silence: The social construction of silence in autobiographical and cultural narratives

Silencing or silent transmission? An exploratory study on trauma communication in Kurdish refugee families

Trauma communication in refugee families is increasingly recognized as an important relational dynamic influencing psychosocial well-being, yet studies exploring interactional dynamics and meaning making at play in intra-family trauma communication remain scarce. This article reports on a qualitative study with Kurdish refugee families including parents (N = 10) and children (N = 17) resettled in Belgium, aiming to explore practices on trauma communication within refugee family relationships. In a multiple-phased qualitative design, semi-structured family interviews and participant observation administered in the homes of the participant families are followed by parental interviews involving a tape-assisted recall procedure to investigate observed intergenerational trauma communication and parent-child interactions. Data analysis shows parents and children seldom explicitly talked about the families' lived experiences of trauma. This silence was especially related to parental wishes to avoid their children's future involvement in violence. However, findings also indicate how the intra-family transmission of memories of collective violence occurs in many subtle ways. Four modes of indirect trauma communication could be distinguished: (1) focusing on the repetition of violence in the present; (2) transmission of the collective trauma history; (3) family storytelling; and (4) interaction with meaningful objects of the past. These findings shed light onto the interwoven nature of personal-familial and collective trauma and loss and illuminate the meanings of silence and disclosure in the context of the Kurdish diaspora. In the final section, we discuss our findings and outline its clinical implications for family therapeutic practices in refugee trauma care.

"One Day It Will Be Over, and You Will See Other Landscapes. . . You Are Not Alone": Adult Survivors' Messages to Children Undergoing Child Sexual Abuse

Child sexual abuse (CSA) has received considerable attention from scholars, contributing to policy, intervention, and prevention efforts worldwide. However, survivors' involvement in this research is limited. This study was designed to delve into the messages of adult CSA survivors to abused children. In all, 371 written testimonies were provided to the Israeli Independent Public Inquiry on CSA by survivors from diverse communities in Israel. The Inquiry aimed to promote change in policies related to CSA. The testimonies were analyzed using the qualitative thematic analysis method. The results revealed five main messages emphasized by survivors to children experiencing CSA: (a) transferring the responsibility and guilt from children to perpetrators and society; (b) turning toward the light and continuing on; (c) disclosure is essential; (d) a happy life is possible; and (e) together we can survive. The discussion emphasizes how various systems in survivors' lives have profound impacts following the abuse. Although survivors were from diverse backgrounds, their messages to abused children were consistent. Through their messages to the children, the survivors emphasized their wish to transfer responsibility and guilt from children experiencing abuse to the society that is supposed to see, listen, protect, and validate. Implications for practice are discussed, focusing on the importance of making room for survivors' voices and experiences in the processes of shaping policies in the area of CSA. Moreover, the survivors' desire to be there for the children emphasized the urgent need to promote the perception of survivors as key stakeholders in the field of child abuse and to integrate their experiences and perceptions into the formal and informal systems for children.

Activistic citizenship in nursing homes: co-ownership in the mundane

The traditional narrative of dementia, focused on cognition as constructive of personhood, has been challenged by person-centred care as well as a rights-based citizenship lens. However, reports of everyday discrimination leading to occupational deprivation and pathologising interpretations of people living with dementia in nursing homes highlight the need for further investigation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the transformative power of mundane and relational enactments of citizenship in nursing homes, exploring the potential of adding an activistic lens of citizenship to our interpretive practices. Through an ethnographic study in Norwegian nursing homes, a narrative analysis of fieldnotes and interview transcripts was conducted. Narratives were interpreted using narrative theory, occupational perspectives and theories of citizenship. Findings reveal a phenomenon of shared ownership between residents and staff, and a vulnerable balance between silence and active social and occupational engagement in the nursing homes. Further, they shed light on how group-based assessments of residents' abilities or occupational needs may constrain opportunities, and staffs' options, to facilitate co-ownership. We suggest that a lens of activistic citizenship implies interpreting residents' behaviours as mundane forms of subtle resistance. A professional and ethical responsibility building on such interpretive practices may turn attention towards structures that constrain residents' expressions of citizenship.

Ideological dilemmas of healthcare professionals who do not speak up at interprofessional team meetings

In healthcare settings, speaking up is considered essential for patient safety. Indeed, voice opportunities are widely available mandatory mechanisms for speaking up at the routine interprofessional team meetings of our study site. Yet, healthcare professionals in team meetings often do not go beyond straightforward reporting of test results and biomedical-functional parameters, suggesting that members with psycho-social information related to the patient are not participating fully in team meetings. Post-meeting interviews with some of the team members revealed the moments of silence and the ideological contradictions underlying team discussions. We explored silences and contradictions as argumentative meanings inherent in naturally occurring speech. The identification of opposing meanings tells of ideological dilemmas that may explain why healthcare practitioners do not speak up vigorously. We identified three such dilemmas: the ideology of working in teams versus the ideology of working solo; the ideology of autonomy versus the ideology of paternalism; and the ideology of collectivism versus the ideology of individuality. The dilemmas made visible the dimensions of silence as well as silencing as an imposition of silence from above. We suggest focussing on mapping disciplinary and interpretive differences and their effects amongst team members may motivate voice. Further studies should explore the affective dimensions of silence in interprofessional team meetings.

Personal Stories of Young Women in Residential Care: Health-Promoting Strategies and Wellbeing

Interdisciplinary social work practice produces and circulates narratives of young women in residential care. The dominant narratives often present negative descriptions of this group, and less attention has been paid to their resistance to these "big stories". This study's aim is to illuminate this resistance of young women in residential care and to explore how they narrate their experiences of being children at risk who have become women managing everyday life. This study utilises a narrative approach and includes three selected personal stories: two from the participants and one from the first author's reflections on resistance. Through contextual analysis at the macro, meso and micro levels, we focus on how personal stories can influence interdisciplinary social work services. We found resistance to dominant narratives on the different levels in the chosen stories. Resistance can create space to reconstruct and renarrate reality together and help understand the meaning and power of storytelling and silence. Participants' resistance can be a tool to rebalance the power between social work practitioners and service users. Based on this analysis, we suggest that interdisciplinary collaborative social work should emphasise service users' personal stories to a higher degree and, in this way, increase user participation in residential care.

Empowered but endangered? An analysis of hegemonic womanhood in Indian gender advocacy campaigns

This research examines digital gender advocacy campaigns in India during the 2010s. By employing thematic analysis and conceptual tools of the social representations theory into the analysis of 250 gender advocacy videos published on YouTube, we answer the following questions: a) How are dangers to women in India discussed in recent video campaigns? b) How is the topic objectified and anchored in multimodal narration? c) How is hegemonic womanhood constructed in the campaigns? The findings suggest that campaigns present two social representations of dangers with sexual harassment depicted as a danger for urban middle-class women and the issues of early marriage, lack of female education, and gender-biased sex selection as rural dangers. The primary solution suggested by the campaigns is to encourage women to actively claim their place in society, placing the main responsibility for changing the situation on women themselves. The secondary solution suggested is to encourage families to support girls and women. Thus, the analysis shows how social representations created by gender advocacy in India put responsibility on individuals and excuse social institutions from addressing inequality, while maintaining power relations and class disparities.

Listening to thunder in the silence on Tiananmen: Politics and ethics of the memory of the June Fourth Movement

‘Forgetting’ has been widely used in academic and public discourses of the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident. The term, however, is conceptually unclear, empirically ineffective, and ethically problematic. Conceptually, it relies on a problematic assumption that silence means forgetting. Empirically, it lumps together different states of memory: ‘don’t remember, don’t talk about, don’t know, and don’t care.’ Ethically, it allows a broad, unjust moral accusation of those who remember but remain silent for various reasons. I argue that ‘silence’ provides greater conceptual precision, more analytical subtlety, and less ethical liability. Silence does not mean forgetting. Nor does it always mean the complete absence of sound. Rather, it refers to the absence of certain discourses about the past. I propose a perspective based on different forms of silence – ‘silencing, silenced, and silent’ – and illustrate it in an analysis of the memory of Tiananmen. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the analysis shows that the Chinese state initially intended to create a ‘covert silence’ – forcing people to remember rather than forget the official stories and silencing other narratives – and then an ‘overt silence’ in which all mention of the event was absent. Even underneath overt silence, however, are various experiences with ambiguities and nuances. The term silence also recognizes individuals’ ethical-political dilemmas under a repressive regime and aims to provide a language for an equal and inclusive truth-and-reconciliation process in the future.

NARRATIVES OF SUICIDALITY, ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION, AND RESILIENCY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE AND RESEARCH

Suicidal behaviors and academic difficulties are characteristics that stigmatize youth as "bad" or "troubled" students. Alternative school programs aim to help students struggling with mental health and academic issues. This study explores how high school students make meaning of experiences of suicidality and resilience with respect to mainstream constructs of mental health, education, and identity. Three cases were selected from a sample of 44 interviews with alternative high school students: an 18-year-old White cisgender hetero-sexual male, a 17-year-old White transgender male (sexuality unspecified), and an 18-year-old Latina cisgender bisexual woman. A preliminary analysis of participant interviews with histories of severe suicidality informed this case selection. Using narrative analysis, common themes emerged: contamination versus redemption, the importance of having space, the physical experience of suicidality, and critical turning points in rejecting stigmatized identities. The findings have implications for practice and research focused on building student resiliency against suicidality.

Social Representations Theory and Young Africans' Creative Narratives about HIV/AIDS, 1997-2014

Research on social representations (SRs) has often focused more on categorical than narrative-based representations. However, narratives are considered to play a key role in the organization of social representations. This paper describes an empirical study of some 2,000 creative narratives about HIV written by young Africans from five countries between 1997 and 2014 and examines the theoretical, methodological and applied relevance of SRT for this study and the implications of the study for the intersection between narrative and SRT. The study is unusual within the SR paradigm: it is temporal and cross-national; addresses a subject whose science has evolved over time; and uses creative narratives as its data source. A narrative perspective foregrounds holistic understandings of SRs as systems of thought. Creative narratives fit well within an SR framework. Our triangulating methodologies foreground categorical or narrative dimensions depending on the objectives of specific sub-studies. Central Core Theory provides a framework to articulate stability and change within narrative representations. In creative narrative, objectification also happens at the level of plot and characters, such that dominant cultural narratives can be viewed as a form of hegemonic SR. We link with health communication and embrace more critical streams within SR research.

Revisiting Redemption: A Life Span Developmental Account of the Functions of Narrative Redemption

We propose an interdisciplinary developmental model of narrative redemption. Although redemption is one of the most thoroughly studied constructs in the narrative identity literature, research to date has not sufficiently addressed the qualitative structures of redemption, which in turn has led to a lack of attention to the developmental functions that redemption serves in different periods of the life span. Based on a review of existing perspectives on redemption across a variety of disciplines, we propose 2 forms of redemption – return and emergent – that correspond to the dual functions of the life story – stability and change. These forms of redemption also interact with the thematic focus of the narrative, which constitutes the second component of our model. Namely, narratives may emphasize either situation themes or identity themes. We use this revised conceptualization of the structures of redemption to explore the developmental functions of redemption, both theoretically and through narrative examples. We conclude that redemption is an autobiographical tool that can be adapted for different psychosocial functions across the life span.

Personality and Authenticity in Light of the Memory-Modifying Potential of Optogenetics

There has been a growing interest in research concerning memory modification technologies (MMTs) in recent years. Neuroscientists and psychologists are beginning to explore the prospect of controllable and intentional modification of human memory. One of the technologies with the greatest potential to this end is optogenetics-an invasive neuromodulation technique involving the use of light to control the activity of individual brain cells. It has recently shown the potential to modify specific long-term memories in animal models in ways not yet possible with other MMTs. As the therapeutic potential of optogenetics has already prompted approval of the first human trials, it is especially important and timely to consider the opportunities and dangers this technology may entail. In this article, we focus on possible consequences of optogenetics as an MMT by analyzing fundamental threats potentially associated with memory modifications: the potential disruption of personality and authenticity.

Early Learning Environments for the Development of Attention: Maternal Narratives in the United States and Japan

A large body of research has demonstrated cross-cultural differences in visual attention, especially between members of North American societies (e.g., Canada, United States) and East Asian societies (e.g., China, Japan, Korea). Despite an increasing number of studies suggesting an emergence of cross-cultural differences in early childhood, relatively little is known about how these culturally divergent patterns of attention are acquired and maintained. It has been largely assumed that socialization practices, especially parent-child interactions, contribute to the acquisition of cross-cultural differences in attention. By focusing on maternal narratives during the shared reading activity, this study examined the socialization contexts in which mothers direct their infants' attention in the United States (n = 50 dyads) and Japan (n = 53 dyads). Mothers in the United States and Japan read a picture book to their 6- to 18-month-old infants in the lab, and maternal narratives were coded to identify attention to focal objects and social interactions. Infants' sustained attention was also measured during shared reading. The findings demonstrated that during the shared reading activity, U.S. mothers were relatively more likely to focus on the focal objects than the background, whereas Japanese mothers were more likely to refer to the social interactions between focal objects and the background. Infants' age and gender were not related to maternal narratives, and infants' sustained attention was similar across cultures. Findings suggest significant cross-cultural differences in mother-infant interactions, which may act as scaffolds for infants to internalize their parents' cognitive styles.

Narrative characteristics of autobiographical memory predict expectations of narrator gender

Gender differences in autobiographical memory have been documented in various domains. The current study attempts to sharpen an understanding of extant gender differences in autobiographical memory by considering listener expectations, contributing to a sociocultural model. Across three studies (a pilot and two separate data collections) a narrative database was created. Narratives were coded for variables that have been shown to differ by gender, including emotion, connectedness to others, factual and interpretive elaboration, and thematic coherence. Participants read narratives and assessed if the narrator was male or female, indicating their confidence. In the pilot study and study 1, narrative features consistently predicted participant's assessments of narrator gender in two separate methods using the same narratives. In study 2, new narratives were used, showing replicability of the method and avoiding potential confounds of naturally occurring differences in study 1 and pilot data. More emotion words predicted higher likelihood of assessing a female narrator. Results support the use of such a methodology as an innovative way to examine gender-based listener expectations in autobiographical memory. They can be used for further theorising about the source of gender differences in this domain of memory that represents a combination of cognitive and social processes.

Communicating emotional support: family caregivers' visits with residents living with dementia in nursing homes

This study characterized emotional connections between largely female caregivers and female care recipients with dementia living in nursing homes with the research question: How does interpersonal communication between family caregivers and older adults with dementia convey enacted emotional support? Ten dyads (8 with at least one female) of regularly-involved family caregivers (7 female; 3 male) and their relatives with dementia (5 female; 5 male) were videotaped. Qualitatively, three themes emerged: 1) distinct conversational topics, 2) shared physical proximity and silence, and 3) catalysts for natural interaction. These findings may help improve the quality of life of these predominantly female dyads.

The Speaking Body and the Silent Mouth

This paper analyzes two micro-case studies to expand our understanding of communication techniques in criminal practices. In the first instance the torture of a suspected drug thief by two street kid research participants is investigated as both an instrumental trial by ordeal and a communication strategy in a media poor community. In the second case study, excerpts from occupational folklore and lifestory interviews are presented to demonstrate the complex ways in which silence is used and resisted in the stories of illegal marijuana growers in a small village in British Columbia.

Who has to tell their trauma story and how hard will it be? Influence of cultural stigma and narrative redemption on the storying of sexual violence

Although survivors of sexual violence have shared their stories with the public on social media and mass media platforms in growing numbers, less is known about how general audiences perceive such trauma stories. These perceptions can have profound consequences for survivor mental health. In the present experimental, vignette-based studies, we anticipated that cultural stigma surrounding sexual violence and cultural preference for positive (redemptive) endings to adversity in the United States (U.S.) would shape perceptions. Four samples of U.S. adults (N = 1872) rated first-person narratives of 6 more stigmatizing (i.e., sexual violence) or less stigmatizing (e.g., natural disaster) traumatic events. Confirming pre-registered hypotheses, sexual violence trauma (versus other types of trauma) stories were perceived as more difficult to tell, and their storytellers less likeable, even when they had redemptive endings. Disconfirming other pre-registered hypotheses, redemptive (versus negative) story endings did not boost the perceived likelihood or obligation to share a sexual violence trauma story. Rather, redemptive (versus negative) story endings only boosted the perceived likelihood, obligation, and ease of telling other, less stigmatizing types of trauma stories. Findings suggest that sexual violence survivors do not benefit, to the same degree as other survivors, from telling their stories with the culturally valued narrative template of redemption. Clinical and societal implications of the less receptive climate for sexual violence stories are discussed.

Beyond the talking imperative: The value of silence on sexuality in youth-parent relations in Bangladesh

Research conducted in various parts of the globe suggests that young people who can openly communicate with their parents about sexuality benefit in many ways. Correspondingly, in Bangladesh, the lack of an open communication on sexuality in the youth-parent relationship is considered a barrier to ensuring young people's sexual and reproductive health and overall well-being. Taking 'silence' as a core concept, this paper investigates what silence on sexuality means to Bangladeshi young people in their relationship with parents. It draws on findings from an ethnographic study conducted among 72 middle-class boys and girls aged between 15 and 19 years and 18 parents living in Dhaka over a year between 2016 and 2017. The findings suggest that silence is not always perceived as problematic by young people, and this is particularly true for topics related to sexual pleasure. This paper challenges the monolithic understanding that silence is necessarily bad and hinders young people from getting what they need. It offers an additional conceptual understanding to silence for studying sexuality among youths and designing interventions for their sexual and reproductive well-being.

Giving Voice to Silence: Empowerment and Disempowerment in the Developmental Shift from Trauma 'Victim' to 'Survivor-Advocate'

In the past several years, a public conversation in the United States about interpersonal violence has flourished, sustained by the work of advocates who are themselves survivors. This surge in public sharing of trauma stories is a rhetorical form of resistance to ideologies in mainstream American culture that impose silence on survivors (e.g., the "just world" belief). However, the developmental progression from trauma 'victim' to empowered public 'survivor/advocate' accommodates to dominant American cultural preferences that stories of adversity have a redemptive story line. In a redemptive story, negative experiences are followed by something positive (e.g., personal growth, lessons learned, strength gained). In this paper, we draw from theory and the sparse relevant literature across multiple disciplines to conceptualize when and for whom the redemptive storying of trauma (or, redemptive master narrative) is available, advantageous, and systemically encouraged. Among the proposed advantages of redemptive storying are its psychological health benefits; potential to empower self and others; promotion of meaning-making, mission, and communal solidarity; and the larger social/political changes that can emerge from giving voice to silenced experiences. Proposed challenges to redemptive storying include layers of societal oppression and marginalization that shape the redemption stories of many survivor-advocates; ongoing connection to or dependence on relationships and communities that enable abuse; and the reality of historical trauma and other forms of intergenerational trauma, which complicate the linear, individualistic story of redemption. With this theory-driven framework, we wish to promote compassion for survivors, along with interdisciplinary, inclusive, and intersectional research in this understudied area.

The Adaptation and Feasibility of Narrative Enhancement and Cognitive Therapy (NECT) for Late-Onset Psychosis

The aim of this study is to adapt and feasibility test the narrative component of Narrative Enhancement and Cognitive Therapy (NECT) for late-onset psychosis. This study followed the development and feasibility phases of the Medical Research Council framework. The original NECT intervention was adapted based on consultations with service users, experts, and clinicians. The evaluation of the feasibility test of the adapted intervention was guided by Orsmond and Cohn (Occup Particip Health 35(3):169-177, 2015)'s model for feasibility studies. The final adaptations consist of language, readability, and delivery. The adapted intervention was tested for feasibility and acceptability with one group of five patients recruited from a National Health Service (NHS) Trust in UK Results were mixed in participant outcomes and a likelihood of acceptability of the intervention. This indicates the need for a larger scale feasibility test to explore the identified benefits and challenges of implementing NECT in NHS or community settings for late-onset psychosis.

Redemptive Stories and Those Who Tell Them are Preferred in the U.S

The present studies examined the common, but untested, theoretical assumption that those in the United States prefer negative past experiences, such as trauma, to be redeemed, to be resolved in some positive or growth-promoting fashion. Narratives of six types of traumatic events were rated by U.S adults (n = 1872) across six samples and two studies. Confirming pre-registered hypotheses, there was a reliable preference for stories that were redeemed compared to stories that ended negatively, as well as for the narrators of redemptive stories, who were judged as likable and to have desirable personality traits. There was no support for the hypothesis that redemptive stories would be viewed as more common than non-redemptive stories, or that the relation between story type and preference would be mediated by Belief in a Just World. Implications include the compulsory nature of storying trauma and potential risks of these cultural expectations.

Identity integration in people with acquired disabilities: A qualitative study

OBJECTIVE

This qualitative investigation focused on identity integration in a sample of individuals who acquired physical disabilities in adulthood. It also argues for the importance and ethics of these methods in the broader field of scholarship on personality change following adversity.

METHOD

Thirteen adults participated in the study. Participants engaged in an expanded Life Story Interview wherein they narrated the story of their life, including a section devoted to their story of acquiring a physical disability. In addition, participants completed questionnaires concerning their psychological well-being and maturity.

RESULTS

We identified two dimensions of narrative themes participants used in grappling with identity integration: one represented active processing of one's life experiences and the other represented the extent to which participants described their identity as wholly transformed by the experience of acquiring a disability. When overlaid, these dimensions yielded four narrative strategies titled: Adapters, Wanderers, Drifters, and Resisters. We also observed that Adapters seemed to have better psychological well-being and maturity than the other groups.

CONCLUSIONS

This study offers a foundation for future scholarship on identity among people with disabilities. It also describes the contexts in which retrospective, qualitative methods are especially appropriate for research on personality change following adversity.

"TOGETHER WE ARE UNBEATABLE": young sisters' narration of a sibling's cancer in personal blogs on the internet

Purpose: Siblings of children and young people diagnosed with cancer are commonly reluctant to talk about their experiences due to the circumstances of the illness situation. This article aims to bring voice to experience and inform practice by investigating what and how three young sisters narrate about their illness experiences in personal blogs on the Internet.

Methods: A narrative methodology for the analysis of life storytelling was applied primarily to investigate the sister’s coping strategies and support needs.

Results: The results show how the sisters constructed their own space for narration, with the main aims of expressing their feelings about the illness and seeking social support. The telling of their experiences along with encouraging comments from a supportive audience enabled a change in position from feeling neglected and silenced to being a recognized agent and caring sister. In addition, through their narrative coping the sisters went from powerless to powerful in their position in relation to cancer.

Conclusion: The results highlight the need for siblings to be able to narrate experience in a supportive context, where the processing of their relationship with the ill sister/brother should be understood as an important element of their coping with cancer and death.

"I Just Kept It to Myself": The Shaping of Latina Suicidality Through Gendered Oppression, Silence, and Violence

Suicide is a critical issue among Latina youth. In this study, we use family case analysis to explore how gendered oppression, silencing, and violence shape suicidal behaviors among a sample of Latina daughters (n = 10), and their parents. For comparison, we include family narratives from Latina adolescents with no histories of suicide attempts (n = 10). Results suggest how secrets and silence, as indicative of gendered oppression, may catalyze a suicide attempt. The risks are particularly salient when daughter and mother both have experienced violence that conflicts with gendered cultural scripts. Findings highlight the importance of parental engagement and exploration of histories of violence in the treatment of Latina suicide attempters. Future research should incorporate the risk factors of gendered oppression and violence to better understand the development of suicidality among Latina women.

The Development of Autobiographical Memory, Autobiographical Narratives, and Autobiographical Consciousness

In this article, we expand on aspects of autobiographical memory initially laid out in our earlier exposition of the sociocultural developmental model. We present a developmental account of the integration of an extended subjective perspective within an extended narrative framework both of which are mediated through language and shared cultural narratives that culminate in autobiographical consciousness. Autobiographical consciousness goes beyond simple memories of past events to create a sense of extended self through time that has experienced and reflexively evaluated events. We argue from philosophical, evolutionary, and developmental psychological perspectives that narratives are a critical form of human consciousness, and that this form is learned through everyday social interactions that are linguistically mediated. Language has “double-duality” in that it is both outward facing, allowing more explicit, organized and differentiated communication to and with others, and language is also inward facing, in that language provides tools for organizing and differentiating internal consciousness. Although consciousness itself is multifaceted, we argue that language is the mechanism without which this particular form of human autobiographical consciousness would not develop.

The sociocultural functions of episodic memory

The functional use of episodic memories to claim epistemic truth must be placed within sociocultural contexts in which certain truths are privileged. Episodic memories are shared, evaluated, and understood within sociocultural interactions, creating both individual and group identities. These negotiated identities provide the foundation from which epistemic claims to truth can be made.

Autobiographical memory coherence and specificity: Examining their reciprocal relation and their associations with internalizing symptoms and rumination

Autobiographical memories consist of different features that have been shown to relate to psychological well-being and psychopathology. Two such characteristics show quite some overlap, namely memory coherence and memory specificity, although their association has never been investigated before. In this study, we examined the association between memory coherence and memory specificity in a sample of first-year psychology students. Additionally, to gain more insight into the relation between memory coherence and psychopathology, we investigated the association with known correlates of memory specificity, namely internalizing symptoms and rumination. We found that narrating about personal experiences in a coherent manner is related to retrieving more specific memories. However, the association between memory coherence and memory specificity was rather weak. Furthermore, we found that memory coherence was negatively associated with the level of depressive symptoms and could predict these symptoms even after controlling for memory specificity and rumination. Given the potential clinical importance of these findings, future research should focus on examining the specific circumstances in which memory coherence is related to psychopathology, and on mechanisms that could explain this association.

Unraveling the Mobilization of Memory in Research With Refugees

In this article, we explore how narrative accounts of trauma are co-constructed through the interaction between researcher and participant. Using a narrative multiple-case study with Kurdish refugee families, we address how this process takes place, investigating how researcher and participants were engaged in relational, moral, collective, and sociopolitical dimensions of remembering, and how this led to the emergence of particular ethical questions. Case examples indicate that acknowledging the multilayered co-construction of remembering in the research relationship profoundly complicates existing deontological guidelines that predominantly emphasize the researcher's responsibility in sensitively dealing with participants' alleged autobiographical trauma narratives. Instead, our analysis invites qualitative researchers to engage in a continued, context-specific ethical reflection on the potential risks and benefits that are invoked in studies with survivors of collective violence.

The Importance of Memory Specificity and Memory Coherence for the Self: Linking Two Characteristics of Autobiographical Memory

Autobiographical memory forms a network of memories about personal experiences that defines and supports well-being and effective functioning of the self in various ways. During the last three decades, there have been two characteristics of autobiographical memory that have received special interest regarding their role in psychological well-being and psychopathology, namely memory specificity and memory coherence. Memory specificity refers to the extent to which retrieved autobiographical memories are specific (i.e., memories about a particular experience that happened on a particular day). Difficulty retrieving specific memories interferes with effective functioning of the self and is related to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Memory coherence refers to the narrative expression of the overall structure of autobiographical memories. It has likewise been related to psychological well-being and the occurrence of psychopathology. Research on memory specificity and memory coherence has developed as two largely independent research domains, even though they show much overlap. This raises some important theoretical questions. How do these two characteristics of autobiographical memory relate to each other, both theoretically and empirically? Additionally, how can the integration of these two facilitate our understanding of the importance of autobiographical memory for the self? In this article, we give a critical overview of memory specificity and memory coherence and their relation to the self. We link both features of autobiographical memory by describing some important similarities and by formulating hypotheses about how they might relate to each other. By situating both memory specificity and memory coherence within Conway and Pleydell-Pearce’s Self-Memory System, we make a first attempt at a theoretical integration. Finally, we suggest some new and exciting research possibilities and explain how both research fields could benefit from integration in future research.

Practitioner Views on the Impacts, Challenges, and Barriers in Supporting Older Survivors of Sexual Violence

Despite half a century of research on both sexual violence and elder abuse, the intersection between the two remains largely unexplored. Using theoretical lenses of feminist criminology and critical feminist gerontology, this article explores the intersection between age and sexual violence drawing on interviews with 23 practitioners supporting older survivors (aged 60 and over). They reported physical and emotional effects of sexual violence leading to limited lifestyles, disengagement from social networks, and reliance on pathogenic coping strategies. Provision of effective support was complicated by challenges associated with aging bodies and the social stigma associated with both sexual victimhood and older age. Additional challenges lay in supporting older male survivors and those living with dementia. The article ends by discussing implications for practice and an agenda for future research.

Making meaning around experiences in interventions: identifying meaningfulness in a group-based occupational therapy intervention targeting older people

There is a need to understand the underlying mechanisms at work within health promotion and occupational therapy interventions. The aim of this article was, therefore, to explore and describe how the participants of a group-based occupational therapy intervention with positive health outcomes created meaning of and around their experiences of the intervention. The studied intervention was part of the evaluation of a single-blinded, exploratory randomised controlled trial of three different interventions. A total of 19 participants between 77 and 82 years of age with experiences from the group-based intervention were interviewed, and the transcribed interviews were analysed from a constructivist approach. The results showed five different perspectives of meaning, including enjoyment, usefulness, togetherness, respect for individuality and self-reflection. Based on our findings, we argue that the possibility of getting information, sharing with others and having fun, and the ability to adjust the activities in the intervention so that they met the individual's needs, created meaning for the participants. Moreover, meeting with others supported the participants’ perspectives of themselves. The results are discussed in relation to the pervasive discourse of successful ageing, including how it was present but also challenged within the participants’ accounts of the intervention.

Acting otherwise: Resistance, agency, and subjectivities in Milgram’s studies of obedience

In this account of the Obedience to Authority experiments, we offer a richer and more dynamic depiction of the subjects’ acts and reactions. To paraphrase Milgram, our account tries to examine the central elements of the situation as perceived by its research subjects. We describe a model of the experimenter–subject system that moves beyond experimentalism and humanism, positing instead a model that considers experimenter–subject relations and extends both spatially and temporally past the experiment’s traditionally assumed limits: the walls of the laboratory and its canonical methods. Following Butler and Krause, we propose an approach that attends to quotidian, subtle, and unregistered ways of acting otherwise. Taking the Yale archive’s collection of Milgram’s subject files, audio recordings, and notes as historical traces of the experimenter–subject system, our analysis introduces a grounded understanding of how Milgram’s cut between obedience and disobedience renders invisible all but the most explicit manifestations of resistance or ways of acting otherwise. Investigating Milgram’s work through an experimenter–subject systems model illuminates previously undocumented affective and temporal dimensions of laboratory life and serves as a template for assessing other experimental situations.

Setting the Records Straight: Impossible Memories and the Persistence of Their Phenomenological Qualities

This article offers a new perspective on the study of “recollections” that feel like memories despite the fact that people come to believe they are based on events that could not possibly have happened. Indeed this feeling of remembering can persist long after people change their beliefs. This new perspective emerges from the integration of the work of memory scientists with that of literary writers and historians. Shedding light on assumptions about the strength of these persistence effects, the perspective serves as an effective heuristic for guiding the study of precipitating factors that may lead people to question their recollections in the first place. This integrative perspective also invites a broader consideration of the circumstances giving rise to changes in beliefs as well as resistance to such changes. In the process, this new perspective extends and sharpens theoretical discussions about memory reconstruction processes, highlighting the role of scene making and social interactions.