The Incremental Validity of Narrative Identity in Predicting Well-Being

Making meaning of one's own life story in words and images: A narrative case report of personal recovery from personality disorder through the interventions "An Empowering Story" and art therapy

Understanding and processing life experiences are essential in the treatment of personality disorders to promote personal recovery and psychological wellbeing. In this qualitative case report, drafted in co-creation between the client, clinical psychologist, and art therapist, individual treatment consisted of two psychotherapeutic interventions, "An Empowering Story" and life-story-focused art therapy, in 12 parallel sessions for 24 weeks. Hilda, 68 years of age, had been diagnosed with an unspecified personality disorder and various traits of borderline personality disorder. She experienced emotional exhaustion following long-term mental health problems rooted in a traumatic early childhood. This affected her ability to manage her emotions and social relations, resulting in the sense that her life had no meaning. Hilda was invited to reconstruct her life experiences, divided into the past, turning point, and present/future, in a written and a painted life story. This allowed for the integration of traumatic as well as positive memories, enhanced self-compassion, and meaning making. She developed self-reflection and integration of internal conflicts leading to a better emotional balance and self-understanding. Art therapy emphasizes bottom-up regulatory processes, while narrative psychology supports top-down regulatory processes. The combined approach effectively integrated bottom-up, experiential, sensory experiences with top-down, cognitive emotion-regulation processes. The results suggest that psychotherapeutic interventions involving a multi-pronged, complementary, and thus more holistic approach can support personal recovery in personality disorders.

Discrimination and Perceived Cultural Mismatch Increase Status-Based Identity Uncertainty

Periods of social mobility, such as attending college, can challenge one's status-based identity, leading to uncertainty around one's status in society. Status uncertainty is associated with poorer well-being and academic outcomes. Little is known, however, about what experiences lead to status uncertainty. The current longitudinal study investigated discrimination experiences and cultural mismatch as predictors of status uncertainty. We propose that discrimination indirectly predicts increased status uncertainty by increasing perceived cultural mismatch with the university. Participants were Latinx college students, all of whom were low-income and/or first generation to college. Discrimination experiences were measured at the end of participants' first year. Cultural mismatch and status uncertainty were measured at the end of Year 2. Status uncertainty was measured again at the end of Year 3. Results indicated that students who experienced more frequent discrimination felt more cultural mismatch 1 year later, and, in turn, reported increased status uncertainty over the following year.

Illness and narrative identity: examining past and future life story chapters in individuals with bipolar disorder, diabetes mellitus or no chronic illness

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether narrative identity challenges are specific to Bipolar Disorder (BD) as a mental illness or a reflection of living with chronic illness. Nineteen individuals diagnosed with BD, 29 individuals diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) and 25 controls without chronic mental or somatic illness identified past and future life story chapters which were self-rated on emotional tone and self-event connections and content-coded for agency and communion themes. Individuals with BD self-rated their past chapters as more negative and less positive, and their chapters were lower on content-coded agency and communion themes compared to T1DM and controls. There were fewer group differences for future chapters, but BD was associated with lower self-rated positive emotional tone and self-stability connections as well as lower content-coded agency and communion themes. The results indicate that narrative identity is affected in individuals with BD above and beyond the consequences of living with chronic illness. This may reflect distinct effects of mental versus somatic illness on narrative identity.

Meaningfulness and attachment: what dreams, psychosis and psychedelic states tell us about our need for connection

The human need to find meaning in life and the human need for connection may be two sides of the same coin, a coin forged in the developmental crucible of attachment. Our need for meaningfulness can be traced to our developmental need for connection in the attachment relationship. The free energy principle dictates that in order to resist a natural tendency towards disorder self-organizing systems must generate models that predict the hidden causes of phenomenal experience. In other words, they must make sense of things. In both an evolutionary and ontogenetic sense, the narrative self develops as a model that makes sense of experience. However, the self-model skews the interpretation of experience towards that which is predictable, or already "known." One may say it causes us to "take things personally." Meaning is felt more acutely when defenses are compromised, when the narrative self is offline. This enables meaning-making that is less egocentrically motivated. Dreams, psychosis, and psychedelic states offer glimpses of how we make sense of things absent a coherent narrative self. This has implications for the way we understand such states, and lays bare the powerful reach of attachment in shaping what we experience as meaningful.

Narrative identity in addictive disorders: a conceptual review

Narrative identity allows individuals to integrate their personal experiences into a coherent and meaningful life story. Addictive disorders appear to be associated with a disturbed sense of self, reflected in problematic and disorganized self-narratives. In recent literature, a growing body of research has highlighted how narrative approaches can make a dual contribution to the understanding of addiction: on the one hand, by revealing crucial aspects of self structure, and, on the other, by supporting the idea that addiction is a disorder related to unintegrated self-states in which dissociative phenomena and the resulting sense of 'loss of self' are maladaptive strategies for coping with distress. This conceptual review identified the main measures of narrative identity, i.e., narrative coherence and complexity, agency, and emotions, and critically examines 9 quantitative and qualitative studies (out of 18 identified in literature), that have investigated the narrative dimension in people with an addictive disorder in order to provide a synthesis of the relationship between self, narrative and addiction. These studies revealed a difficulty in the organization of narrative identity of people with an addictive disorder, which is reflected in less coherent and less complex autobiographical narratives, in a prevalence of passivity and negative emotions, and in a widespread presence of themes related to a lack of self-efficacy. This review points out important conceptual, methodological and clinical implications encouraging further investigation of narrative dimension in addiction.

Narrative as active inference: an integrative account of cognitive and social functions in adaptation

While the ubiquity and importance of narratives for human adaptation is widely recognized, there is no integrative framework for understanding the roles of narrative in human adaptation. Research has identified several cognitive and social functions of narratives that are conducive to well-being and adaptation as well as to coordinated social practices and enculturation. In this paper, we characterize the cognitive and social functions of narratives in terms of active inference, to support the claim that one of the main adaptive functions of narrative is to generate more useful (i.e., accurate, parsimonious) predictions for the individual, as well as to coordinate group action (over multiple timescales) through shared predictions about collective behavior. Active inference is a theory that depicts the fundamental tendency of living organisms to adapt by proactively inferring the causes of their sensations (including their own actions). We review narrative research on identity, event segmentation, episodic memory, future projections, storytelling practices, enculturation, and master narratives. We show how this research dovetails with the active inference framework and propose an account of the cognitive and social functions of narrative that emphasizes that narratives are for the future-even when they are focused on recollecting or recounting the past. Understanding narratives as cognitive and cultural tools for mutual prediction in social contexts can guide research on narrative in adaptive behavior and psychopathology, based on a parsimonious mechanistic model of some of the basic adaptive functions of narrative.

Measuring narrative identity: rater coding versus questionnaire-based approaches

Narrative identity - how individuals narrate their lived and remembered past - is usually assessed via independent rater coding, but new methods relying on self-report have been introduced. To test the assumption that different methods assess aspects of the same underlying construct, studies measuring similar components of narrative identity with different methods are needed. However, such studies are surprisingly rare. To begin to fill this gap, the present study compared the narrative variables, temporal coherence, causal coherence, and thematic coherence, measured via rater coding of participants' self-generated narratives of the remembered past and via subscales of the self-report measure Awareness of Narrative Identity Questionnaire (ANIQ). The results showed that the ANIQ subscales did not correlate significantly with their corresponding rater-coded dimension, and that the ANIQ subscales were generally unrelated to the other rater-coded dimensions. Furthermore, an exploratory factor analysis demonstrated that the ANIQ subscales loaded together on a factor that did not include any rater-coded variables. The findings suggest that the narrative variables share little empirical overlap when assessed via the ANIQ and rater coding of self-generated narratives.

Young adults' personal and relationship memories: recollections of self, siblings, and family

We investigated the phenomenological and narrative characteristics of young adults' self- and other-related memories within the context of significant relationships. We also examined whether participants' gender and/or gender concordance between participants and their siblings was associated with autobiographical memory characteristics. We collected data from 108 college students who had only one sibling. All participants provided narratives in response to three memory prompts (i.e., self-related, sibling-related, and family-related) and rated their memories along dimensions such as significance, emotional valence, clarity etc. The narratives were coded on thematic content, transformativeness, mentions of others, and event type dimensions. Results revealed differences between self-related memories and sibling- and family-related memories across several dimensions. However, sibling-related and family-related memories were mostly similar to each other. No statistically significant gender or gender concordance differences were observed. Further exploratory analysis showed that memory narratives describing extended events were more transformative than single event narratives. The findings enhance our understanding about the self-in-relation to others through relationship memories.

Awareness of Narrative Identity Questionnaire (ANIQ) in Early Adolescents: Psychometric Evaluation and Association with Features of Personality Disorder

Identity formation is central to adolescent development. Challenges in establishing a stable sense of self is associated with maladaptive identity function, which has been recognized as a core feature of personality pathology. The narrative identity framework offers a unique lens to garner salient information about one's sense of self. The Awareness of Narrative Identity Questionnaire (ANIQ) is a self-report measure of narrative identity validated in adults but is yet to be validated in adolescents. The current study aimed to conduct the first psychometric evaluation of the ANIQ in a sample of 205 youth aged 10-14 years (M = 12.1 ± 1.06 years; 50.7% female; 73.7% Hispanic) recruited from a public charter school. Results confirmed the four-factor structure of the ANIQ and showed high internal consistency. Convergent validity was supported through negative associations between the ANIQ and borderline personality features and identity diffusion. Incremental validity of the ANIQ over identity diffusion in predicting borderline personality features was also examined, but not supported. Overall, results support the ANIQ as a promising instrument for the assessment of narrative identity in youth. However, some improvements to the ANIQ might be necessary in order to use it as a clinical tool in identifying youth with personality pathology.

"I want to lift my people up": Exploring the psychological correlates of racial themes within the life stories of midlife Black Americans

OBJECTIVE

This study explores how middle-aged Black Americans talk about race, without prompting, while telling their life stories.

METHOD

Drawing upon a dataset of lengthy Life Story Interviews (N = 70), we first employed a keyword search to identify race-relevant interview scenes for each participant. Next, we conducted a thematic analysis of these scenes to identify salient racial narrative themes. Finally, we coded race-relevant scenes to examine the psychological correlates of racial narrative themes.

RESULTS

We identified 460 total racially themed Life Story Interview scenes, with the number of racially themed scenes ranging from 1 to 17 across participants' interviews. Racial narrative themes included Community of Care, Black Cultural Identity, Multiculturalism, Activism, Encounter with Racism, Systemic Racism, and Racial Reckoning. Quantitative analyses highlight a relationship between racial narrative themes and psychological measures of wisdom and generativity.

CONCLUSION

This study offers insight into the ways that race manifests in the life stories of Black Americans and highlights the importance of considering race in the study of narrative identity, and personality, more broadly.

Dimensional model of adolescent personality pathology, reflective functioning, and emotional maltreatment

Introduction

Childhood emotional abuse (CEA) is a recognized risk factor for adolescent mentalizing challenges. However, there's limited understanding about how CEA might influence personality development and elevate the risk of adolescent personality pathology. A deeper grasp of these pathways is crucial, given that adolescence is a pivotal developmental phase for identity integration, personality consolidation, and the emergence of personality disorders. As the emphasis shifts to dimensional perspectives on adolescent personality pathology, the spotlight is increasingly on adolescents' evolving personality organization (PO). Within this framework, personality disorder manifestations stem from inherent vulnerabilities in PO. A comprehensive understanding of how CEA leads to these inherent vulnerabilities in PO can inform enhanced interventions for at-risk adolescents. Nonetheless, our comprehension lacks insight into potential pathways to PO, especially those involving external factors like maltreatment and individual traits like mentalizing. This study sought to bridge these gaps by employing latent factor analysis and structural equation modeling to explore connections between emotional maltreatment, adolescent mentalizing, and PO.

Methods

A community-based cohort of 193 adolescents (aged 12-17) took part in self-report assessments: the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse Questionnaire (CECA.Q), the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire for Youth (RFQ-Y), and the Inventory for Personality Organization for Adolescents (IPO-A).

Results

The structural equation model revealed a significant direct influence of CEA on both RFQ-Confusion and PO, and a noteworthy direct effect of RFQ-Confusion on PO. Remarkably, the model accounted for 76.9% of the PO variance. CEA exhibited a significant indirect impact on PO through RFQ-Confusion, which was accountable for 52.3% of the CEA effect on PO, signifying a partial mediation by mentalizing.

Discussion

These insights carry substantial clinical implications, especially for devising integrated, trauma-informed strategies for adolescents with personality pathologies. This is particularly relevant for enhancing mentalizing and bolstering personality consolidation among adolescent CEA survivors.

Unsettled adoptive identity: Understanding relationship challenges in adopted adolescents' identity narratives

Adopted adolescents create identity narratives conceptualizing their connections to their families of adoption and birth. Previous work with a sample of adoptive adolescents identified a sub-group who reported negative experiences regarding adoption as part of their navigating of adoptive identity processes (the "Unsettled" group). The current study examined interviews with adolescents in the "Unsettled" group to elucidate these negative experiences, specifically through identifying the relationship challenges linked to adoption. Participants included 30 adopted adolescents (18 females, 12 males) from a longitudinal study of adoptive families. All the adolescents (M age = 15.2 years) were domestically adopted in infancy by heterosexual couples who were the same race as the adolescents (29 White, 1 Mexican American). Thematic analysis revealed six themes reflecting adolescents' relationship challenges as related to adoption, both in terms of interpersonal interactions and how relational experiences influenced adolescents' thoughts and feelings of past, present, and future selves: (a) Negative experiences in relationships with adoptive family members, (b) Negative experiences in relationships with birth family members, (c) Difficulties in the adoptive kinship network, (d) Negative thoughts and feelings toward the self as an adopted person, (e) Negative views toward adoption as a form of building a family, and (f) Negative connections between adoption and future relationships. Multiple subthemes were also identified that built upon topics within the adoption and family systems literature, such as communication among family members, navigation of birth family contact, and adopted adolescents' perceptions of loss. Also identified were four profiles across themes. Implications for mental health providers and adoption professionals are discussed.

Making meaning of trauma in psychosis

Background

Finding new meaning and identity in the aftermath of trauma has been identified as a key process of mental health recovery. However, research indicates that this meaning-making process is compromised in people with psychosis. Considering the high prevalence, yet under-treatment of trauma in people with psychosis, it is urgent to gain insight into how their meaning-making process can be supported.

Aim

To gain insight into how people with psychosis make meaning of trauma and identify barriers and facilitators in their meaning-making process.

Methods

Qualitative inquiry of N = 21 interviews transcripts from the Dutch Psychiatry Storybank. We included interviews of people who (a) lived through multiple psychotic episodes, and (b) spontaneously addressed traumatic experiences in a low-structured interview. Storyline analysis was performed to gain insight into the meaning-making of trauma within their self-stories. Psychosocial conceptualizations of narrative identity were used to inform the analysis. A data-validation session with four experts-by-experience was organized to check and improve the quality of our analysis.

Results

We identified four different story types: (1) Psychiatry as the wrong setting to find meaning; (2) The ongoing struggle to get trauma-therapy; (3) Exposure to trauma as a threat to a stable life, and (4) Disclosure as the key to resolving alienation. Each story type comprises a different plot, meaning of trauma withing the self-story, (lack of) integration and barriers and facilitators in the meaning-making process. Overall, barriers in the meaning-making process were mostly situated within mental healthcare and stigma-related. People felt particularly hindered by pessimistic ideas on their capacity to develop self-insight and cope with distress, resulting in limited treatment options. Their process of adaptive meaning-making often started with supportive, non-judgmental relationships with individuals or communities that offered them the safety to disclose trauma and motivated them to engage in a process of self-inquiry and growth.

Conclusion

The outcomes illuminate the social context of the meaning-making challenges that people with psychosis face and illustrate the devastating influence of stigma. Our outcomes offer guidance to remove barriers to adaptive meaning-making in people with psychosis, and can help clinicians to attune to differences in the meaning-making of trauma.

The Stories We Tell Influence the Support We Receive: Examining the Reception of Support-Seeking Messages on Reddit

Although social support facilitates coping and recovering from stressful life events, people do not always get the support that they need. Prior research suggests that the way one talks about stressful events to others may influence the support they receive. Given that people are increasingly relying on online communities for social support, this study adopted a person-centered approach (latent profile analysis) to examine how narrative variables related to the motivational themes, emotional content, and organizational structure of randomly sampled support-seeking messages (N = 495) posted on Reddit (r/Anxiety and r/Depression) influenced the quantity (number of comments and post score) and quality (type of support in comments) of support that they received. We identified five distinct narrative profiles of support-seeking posts, which in turn differentially predicted the quality, but not quantity, of social support people received. While commenters provided high levels of emotional support to all forms of posts, we found that coherence was an important determinant of esteem support. A combination of coherence, as well as agency and affective tone, were important determinants of instrumental, informational, and network support. The ways in which one talks about their problems influence the way others support them.

Self-concept and Narrative Identity in Youth at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS

Disturbances of the narrative self and personal identity accompany the onset of psychotic disorders in late adolescence and early adulthood (a formative developmental stage for self-concept and personal narratives). However, these issues have primarily been studied retrospectively after illness onset, limiting any inferences about their developmental course.

STUDY DESIGN

Youth at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) (n = 49) and matched healthy comparison youth (n = 52) completed a life story interview (including self-defining memory, turning point, life challenge, and psychotic-like experience) and questionnaires assessing self-esteem, self-beliefs, self-concept clarity, and ruminative/reflective self-focus. Trained raters coded interviews for narrative identity themes of emotional tone, agency, temporal coherence, context coherence, self-event connections, and meaning-making (intraclass correlations >0.75). Statistical analyses tested group differences and relationships between self-concept, narrative identity, symptoms, and functioning.

STUDY RESULTS

CHR participants reported more negative self-esteem and self-beliefs, poorer self-concept clarity, and more ruminative self-focus, all of which related to negative symptoms. CHR participants narrated their life stories with themes of negative emotion and passivity (ie, lack of personal agency), which related to positive and negative symptoms. Reflective self-focus and autobiographical reasoning were unaffected and correlated. Autobiographical reasoning was uniquely associated with preserved role functioning.

CONCLUSIONS

This group of youth at CHR exhibited some, but not all, changes to self-concept and narrative identity seen in psychotic disorders. A core theme of negativity, uncertainty, and passivity ran through their semantic and narrative self-representations. Preserved self-reflection and autobiographical reasoning suggest sources of resilience and potential footholds for cognitive-behavioral and metacognitive interventions.

Crisis as Opportunity, Risk, or Turmoil: Qualitative Study of Youth Narratives About the COVID-19 Pandemic

PURPOSE

The present study employed a narrative approach in order to explore how young people constructed meanings regarding their sense of self in the context of COVID-19 experiences. Adolescents have been identified as a particularly vulnerable group, as the developmental challenges they face are superimposed and amplified by the accidental crisis caused by the pandemic.

METHODS

An in-depth narrative analysis was conducted on written accounts of 13 females aged 17-23 years from Serbia. We selected these narratives from a larger sample of 70 responses (M = 20.1; SD = 2.9; 85.7% female) collected via an online form. We used reflexive thematic analysis as a tool for the selection process of the narratives subjected to in-depth narrative analysis.

RESULTS

Young people told stories that differ significantly in coherence, affective tone, personal agency, and depth of self-exploration. Narrative analysis of the selected accounts identified three distinct types of stories: (1) crisis as an opportunity for personal growth, (2) crisis as a risk for the sense of self, and (3) crisis as inner turmoil.

DISCUSSION

Narrative analysis enabled us to recognize three distinct processes of youth meaning-making related to the sense of self in times of crisis, all reflecting a significant impact on their core developmental task. Personal narratives served different functions; for some, the pandemic was framed as a challenge one could grow from, while others were left devastated or overwhelmed. Narrative coherence reflected youths' capacities for integrating experiences not necessarily connected to their psychological well-being.

Themes of trust, identity, intimacy, and generativity in important autobiographical memories: Associations with life periods and life satisfaction

INTRODUCTION

Guided by Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, the present study investigated whether themes of trust, identity, intimacy, and generativity are represented in older adults' most important autobiographical memories. Furthermore, we tested whether these themes are associated with certain life periods and whether having important memories (i.e., life story) that reflect developmental themes and are evaluated as positive is associated with life satisfaction.

METHODS

One hundred and twelve (59.8% female) older adults (61-92 years, M = 70.96, SD = 6.81) reported up to 15 important autobiographical memories. Participants rated each memory according to the themes of trust/mistrust, identity/confusion, intimacy/isolation, and generativity/stagnation.

RESULTS

Using multilevel multinomial logistic regression, we found childhood memories to be associated with trust, memories from participants' youth with identity and intimacy, and adulthood memories with intimacy and generativity. Moreover, participants who rated their autobiographical memories (i.e., life story) as high in reflecting themes and, at the same time, perceived their memories as more positive showed higher levels of life satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

Important autobiographical memories reflect how an individual became the person of today. They refer to age-related themes of psychosocial development and are associated with a person's life satisfaction if they are also considered as emotionally more positive.

Family relationships as a source of narrative identity of people with advanced dementia

BACKGROUND

The growing body of research on narrative identity, while helpful, rarely focuses on people with dementia. In this paper, we explore how individuals living with advanced dementia construct their narrative identities in relation to their family experiences, which play a crucial role in shaping identity as shown by recent studies.

METHODS

We conducted a qualitative study using data from 15 semi-structured interviews with people aged 66 to 94 who have advanced dementia. The data were analyzed using a textual-oriented discourse analysis.

RESULTS

We identified two discourses-autobiographical and economic-that organize their narrative identities. Through the autobiographical discourse, participants emphasized their sense of belonging within a social group and their role as custodians of family identity. Within the economic discourse, they negotiated their social utility and value, particularly in response to demeaning discourses targeting individuals who do not accumulate wealth. In the structural analysis, we identified two narrative types-looped or unfolding-that depend on their affective experiences related to their family. We especially explored how the repetition of narrative threads by individuals with dementia might indicate a traumatic background rather than just memory disruptions.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides insights into the narrative identities of individuals with advanced dementia, shedding light on the intersection of family experiences and identity formation in this population.

Narrative identity does not predict well-being when controlling for emotional valence

Narrative identity refers to a person's internalized and evolving life story. It is a rapidly growing research field, motivated by studies showing a unique association with well-being. Here we show that this association disappears when controlling for the emotional valence of the stories told and individuals' general experience of autobiographical memory. Participants (N = 235) wrote their life story and completed questionnaires on their general experience of autobiographical memory and several dimensions of well-being and affect. Participants' life stories were coded for standard narrative identity variables, including agency and communion. When controlling for emotional valence of the life story, the general experience of autobiographical memory was a significant predictor of most well-being measures, whereas agency was a predictor of one variable only and communion of none. These findings contradict the claim of an incremental association between narrative identity and well-being, and have important theoretical and practical implications for narrative identity as an outcome measure in interventions.

Cognitive scripts and narrative identity are shaped by structures of power

Constructing a narrative identity involves developing an understanding of oneself as integrated through time and across contexts, a task critical to psychosocial development and functioning. However, research has primarily focused on the individual in isolation or in highly localized contexts. This is problematic because narrative identity is profoundly shaped by structures of power; thus, we cannot understand how individuals understand themselves through time, across contexts, and as a member of a particular community without attention to the structure of society. We propose a structural-psychological framework for the study of autobiographical memory, narrative, and context that examines how structures of power are maintained, and potentially changed, through the narration of autobiographical events, as guided by cognitive scripts, or master narratives.

Personal identity, somatic symptoms, and symptom-related thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in adolescence: Examining between- and within-person associations and the role of depressive symptoms

Recent literature highlights the complex relationship between personal identity and body-related pathology, yet there is a lack of integrative longitudinal research on the relationship between identity and somatic symptoms. The present study investigated the longitudinal associations between identity functioning and (psychological characteristics of) somatic symptoms, and examined the role of depressive symptoms in this relationship. A total of 599 community adolescents (Time 1: 41.3% female; M_age = 14.93, SD = 1.77, range = 12-18 years) participated in three annual assessments. Using cross-lagged panel models, a bidirectional relationship between identity and (psychological characteristics of) somatic symptoms, mediated by depressive symptoms, emerged at the between-person level; whereas only a unidirectional relationship from psychological characteristics of somatic symptoms to identity functioning, mediated by depressive symptoms, emerged at the within-person level. Identity and depressive symptoms were bidirectionally related at both levels. The present study suggests that adolescent identity development is closely related to somatic and emotional distress.

How I Remember My Mother’s Story: A Cross-National Investigation of Vicarious Family Stories in Turkey and New Zealand

Stories that have not been personally experienced by children and are only told by their parents are called vicarious family stories. An emerging body of literature has shown that vicarious family stories are an important part of children’s narrative ecology. However, to date, only two studies from the same cross-cultural project have examined the role of culture in vicarious family stories. The aims of this study were to examine vicarious mother stories in Turkey and New Zealand (NZ) and to investigate individual variations in national groups with regard to the internalization of cultural orientations (i.e., self-construals). There were 108 Turkish and 79 NZ women in this study. We found that Turkish women’s stories were more thematically coherent and included more social interactions and other-related words than NZ women’s. When reporting reasons for why they thought family members told stories, didactic purposes and expressing emotions were more common reasons for Turkish women, whereas sharing family history and entertainment were more common reasons for NZ women. However, Turkish and NZ women’s vicarious stories were similar in terms of identity connections and affective tone. Unexpectedly, we did not find a significant role of individuals’ self-construals in the link between national groups and vicarious stories. This study contributes to the growing area of research on family narratives by showing the commonalities and differences in the construction of vicarious stories across national groups.

Autobiographical memory and psychopathology: Is memory specificity as important as we make it seem?

Several decades of research have established reduced autobiographical memory specificity, or overgeneral memory, as an important cognitive factor associated with the risk for and maintenance of a range of psychiatric diagnoses. In measuring this construct, experimenters code autobiographical memories for the presence or absence of a single temporal detail that indicates that the remembered event took place on a single, specific, day (Last Thursday when I rode bikes with my son), or multiple days (When I rode bikes with my son). Studies indicate that the specificity of memories and the amount of other episodic detail that they include (e.g., who, what, and where) are related and may rely on the same neural processes to elicit their retrieval. However, specificity and detailedness are nonetheless separable constructs: imperfectly correlated and differentially associated with current and future depressive symptoms and other associated intrapersonal (e.g., rumination) and interpersonal (e.g., social support) outcomes. The ways in which the details of our memories align with narrative themes (i.e., agency, communion, identity) and the coherence with which these details are presented, are also emerging as important factors associated with psychopathology. The temporal specificity of autobiographical memories may be important, but other memory constructs warrant further attention in research and theory, especially given the associations, and dependencies, between each of these constructs. Researchers in this area must consider carefully whether their research questions necessitate a focus on autobiographical memory specificity or whether a more inclusive analysis of other autobiographical memory features is necessary and more fruitful. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.

The development of narrative identity in the psychodynamic treatment of avoidant personality disorder: A case study

Avoidant personality disorder (AvPD) is characterized by feelings of shyness, inadequacy, and restraint in intimate relationships and has been associated with a disturbance in narrative identity, which is the internalized and evolving story of past, present, and future experiences. Study findings have indicated that an improvement in overall mental health through psychotherapy may increase narrative identity. However, there is a lack of studies incorporating not only the examination of narrative identity development before and after psychotherapy but also within psychotherapy sessions. This case study examined the development of narrative identity in short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment of a patient with AvPD, using therapy transcripts and life narrative interviews before, after, and 6 months following treatment termination. Narrative identity development was assessed in terms of agency, communion fulfillment, and coherence. Results showed that the patient’s agency and coherence increased over the course of therapy, whereas communion fulfillment decreased. At the six-month follow-up, agency and communion fulfillment increased, whereas coherence remained stable. The results of this case study suggest that the patient’s sense of narrative agency and ability to narrate coherently improved after undergoing short-term psychodynamic therapy. The decrease of communion fulfillment during psychotherapy and later increase after termination suggests that the patient became more aware of conflictual patterns in their relationships, therefore realizing that their wishes and desires were not being fulfilled in their current relationships. This case study displays the possible impact short-term psychodynamic therapy may have by helping patients with AvPD develop a narrative identity.

Life stories of patients with personality disorders before and after treatment: Change and stability in agency and communion

Introduction

Studying written life stories of patients with personality disorders (PDs) may enhance knowledge of how they understand themselves, others and the world around them. Comparing the construction of their life stories before psychotherapy to their reconstruction after psychotherapy may provide insight in therapeutic changes in the understandings of their lives.

Methods

As few studies addressed this topic, the current study explored changes in agency (i.e., perceived ability to affect change in life), and communion (i.e,, perceived connectedness to other persons) in written life stories of 34 patients with various PDs, before and after intensive psychotherapy treatment.

Results

Life stories showed a positive increase in agency from pre- to posttreatment, in particular regarding internal agency, societal success, and occupational success. No significant changes were observed for communion as a whole. However, the perceived number and quality of close relationships revealed a significant positive increase.

Discussion

The increased agency in the reconstruction of patients' life story after psychotherapy suggests that patients improved their perceived ability to affect change in their own lives. This can be seen as an important step in the treatment of PDs towards further recovery.

What are the needs of frail older patients in the emergency department? A qualitative study

BACKGROUND

There is an increase in the number of frail elderly patients presenting to the emergency department. Diagnosis and treatment for this patient group is challenging due to multimorbidity, a-typical presentation and polypharmacy and requires specialised knowledge and competencies from healthcare professionals. We aim to explore the needs and preferences regarding emergency care in frail older patients based on their experiences with received care during Emergency Department admission.

METHOD

A qualitative study design was used, and semi-structured interviews were conducted after discharge with twelve frail older patients admitted to emergency departments in the Netherlands. Data collection and analysis were performed iteratively, and data were thematically analysed.

RESULTS

The analysis enfolded the following themes; feeling disrupted, expecting to be cared for, suppressing their needs and wanting to be seen. These themes indicated a need for situational awareness by healthcare professionals when taking care of the participants and were influenced by the participants' life experiences.

CONCLUSION

Frail older patients feel disrupted when admitted to the emergency department. Because of this, they expect to be cared for, lessen their own needs and want to be seen as human beings. The impact of the admission is influenced by the extent to which healthcare professionals show situational awareness.

Hostage negotiator resilience: A phenomenological study of awe

Law enforcement crisis and hostage negotiators (CHNs) are tasked with resolving incidents that are stressful, unpredictable, and often dangerous. These negotiators must work as a team and be able to successfully utilize a variety of skills in order to gain the subject's voluntary compliance and peaceful surrender. It is necessary for negotiators to continually practice these skills while also, and importantly, care for their own wellbeing. This study examines how a phenomenon, awe, when viewed as a resilience practice, can support law enforcement crisis hostage negotiators with their crisis work and personal wellness. Utilizing phenomenological methodologies, the findings demonstrate that reflecting on awe experiences had an overall positive impact on the negotiators in both their professional and personal lives. Based on the results, it is suggested that awe practices could be incorporated into future negotiator trainings in order to increase resilience and assist negotiators personally and professionally.

Narrative identity among people with disabilities in the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic: The interdependent self

This study examines narrative identity among a large, diverse sample of people with disabilities (PWDs) in the United States during the "second wave" of the Covid-19 pandemic (October-December 2020). The study relied on abductive analyses, combining a purely inductive phase of inquiry followed by two rounds of investigation that filtered inductive insights through three theoretical lenses: social-ecological theory, the theory of narrative identity, and perspectives from the interdisciplinary field of disability studies. The central result was the identification of a particular configuration of self, one that was demonstrably interdependent with both immediate interpersonal contexts and with broader cultural contexts. This interdependent self was interpreted in both positive and negative ways by PWDs. These findings invite future inquiry into commonplace conceptualizations of an independent self at the center of personality research and suggest that dominant conceptualizations of "the good life" may overly emphasize independence.

When Harry Met Sally: Older Adult Spouses' First Encounter Reminiscing and Well-Being

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Interest in reminiscence activities for older adults has grown in recent years, but the benefits of co-reminiscence are not well-known. Drawing from a narrative identity framework, this study examined older adult spouses' co-reminiscence about their first encounters. We hypothesized that perceived closeness and support increase when spouses co-reminisce and that greater perceptions of closeness and support after reminiscing relate to lower depressive symptoms and greater marital satisfaction in daily life.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

One hundred and one couples completed questionnaires measuring marital satisfaction and depressive symptoms at home and then participated in a laboratory session in which they co-reminisced about their first encounters. Self-reported perceived support and relationship closeness were obtained before and after reminiscence. t Tests and the Actor Partner Interdependence Model were used to examine hypotheses.

RESULTS

As hypothesized, closeness and perceived support increased from pre- to postreminiscence for husbands and wives. In addition, one's own relationship closeness after reminiscence was positively associated with own marital satisfaction (actor effect). One's perceived support after reminiscence was positively related to spouse's marital satisfaction and negatively associated with their spouse's depressive symptoms (partner effects).

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Findings suggest that co-reminiscence about early relationship development can boost feelings of closeness and support for older adults. Benefiting from co-reminiscence in this way also appears to indicate broader relationship and individual well-being. Brief co-reminiscence activities may nurture late-life relational well-being.

Life stories: Unraveling the academic configuration of a multifaceted and multidisciplinary field of knowledge

In the field of qualitative research, life stories are consolidated as one of the most important techniques within the biographical method. However, due to the multiplicity of techniques covered by this method and the disciplines in which it is applied, the contributions and scope of life histories do not present a clear delimitation. By contrast, a considerable conceptual confusion persists and the transfer of its production remains very narrow. In this sense, this article aims to clarify the field of knowledge generated through life stories. To this end, it innovatively applies the bibliometric method. Making use of performance analysis and scientific mapping through the VosViewer application, it studies a body of 2670 articles indexed in the Web of Science. The results show how knowledge transferred from psychology through its major schools of thought occupies a central place. This leaves in a secondary position the knowledge produced by other disciplines such as sociology or anthropology, which is not transferred in the main forums of scientific impact. In this way, the conclusion points to the need to open up new lines of research to find out the differences between the different techniques and disciplines when applying this methodology.

Talking really does matter: Lay perspectives from older people on talking about suicide in later life

Background

The cumulative body of research on suicidality in later life describes its unique and complex features in older people when compared with that in other population groups. Yet significant gaps exist in how research informs the further development of suitable interventions. The perspectives of older people are also limited in research findings.

Aims

Therefore, this exploratory study aimed to (1) identify potential barriers and enablers in discussing suicidal thoughts and their expression in later life from the perspectives of lay older people and (2) explore where opportunities might occur in approach, place, relationships, and language with older people to discuss suicidal thoughts and their expression.

Method

We conducted in-depth qualitative individual interviews with 15 people aged 70-89 years. This method helped explore older peoples' own lay perspectives on suicidal thoughts in later life and how these are expressed, and their understanding of where and how people might seek support.

Results

A total of three themes were generated from the dataset: (1) intergenerational and socio-cultural differences in suicide expression, (2) the normalization of suicidal thoughts in later life, and (3) the importance and difficulties of everyday discussion and opportunities to express suicidal thoughts.

Conclusion

Suicidal thoughts and their expression appear commonly and are normalized in later life yet remain taboo and hidden. The participants revealed how such thoughts and behaviors are typically expressed through colloquial or "off-hand" remarks and comments and the importance of authentic listening. The findings highlight the importance of more informal discussions around these topics and how care professionals, practitioners, and providers might frame opportunities for dialogue with people who may want to access support. Further engagement with community-informed participatory research methods in which older people provide their own perspectives and experiences is important in addressing these gaps. There is a need for co-designing in developing screening, assessment, and signposting outside of clinical settings that can be used in everyday caring relationships with people in later life.

Perceived posttraumatic growth after interpersonal trauma and subsequent well-being among young Colombian adults: A longitudinal analysis

Research has shown that people sometimes report self-perceived growth as a result of dealing with a potentially traumatic event, but relatively few methodologically rigorous studies have examined whether perceived posttraumatic growth is associated with improved subsequent well-being across a wide range of outcomes. In this three-wave longitudinal study of Colombian emerging adults (n = 636), we examined the associations of perceived posttraumatic growth with 17 well-being outcomes across domains of psychological well-being (i.e., self-rated mental health, meaning in life, sense of purpose, happiness, life satisfaction), psychological distress (i.e., anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, subjective suffering), social well-being (i.e., content with relationships, satisfying relationships, loneliness), physical well-being (i.e., self-rated physical health, sleep quality), and character strengths (i.e., state hope, trait forgivingness, orientation to promote good, delayed gratification). Using an outcome-wide analytic design that adjusted for a range of covariates assessed in Wave 1, we found that overall perceived posttraumatic growth assessed in Wave 2 was robustly associated with improvements in one or more facet of each well-being domain (15/17 outcomes in total) assessed approximately six months later in Wave 3. Our findings suggest that perceived posttraumatic growth may contribute to individual well-being over the longer-term.

Early Impacts of College, Interrupted: Considering First-Year Students' Narratives About COVID and Reports of Adjustment During College Shutdowns

The COVID-19 pandemic has threatened lives and livelihoods, imperiled families and communities, and disrupted developmental milestones globally. Among the critical developmental disruptions experienced is the transition to college, which is common and foundational for personal and social exploration. During college shutdowns (spring 2020), we recruited 633 first-year U.S. students (mean age = 18.83 years, 71.3% cisgender women) to provide narratives about the impacts of the pandemic. We tested the ways narrative features were associated with concurrent and longitudinal COVID stressors, psychosocial adjustment, and identity development. Narrative growth expressed in spring 2020 was positively associated with psychosocial adjustment and global identity development and was negatively associated with mental health concerns. Associations were supported concurrently and at 1-year follow-up. Growth partly explained associations between COVID stressors and students' adjustment. Our findings reinforce the importance of growth for resilience and underscore the importance of connective reasoning as people navigate a chronic stress.

The role of intergenerational family stories in mental health and wellbeing

Patterns of memory sharing begin early in one’s life, informing relationships, one’s history, and one’s sense of cultural belonging. Memory sharing among families has been the focus of research investigating the relationship between mental health and intergenerational memory. A burgeoning body of research is showing that intergenerational knowledge of one’s family history is associated with positive mental health and wellbeing. However, research on the specific mechanisms and potential applications of such findings are just beginning to emerge. In particular, studies examining intergenerational storytelling point to the importance of culture and gender as critical factors underlying how stories are told and the extent to which these stories are associated with wellbeing. Such findings hold important promise for the pentation and treatment of mental health issues. As research in this area continues to evolve, the identification and characterization of factors and mechanisms underlying intergenerational family stories and wellbeing may help to guide the integration of family stories into mental health interventions.

Making sense of work: finding meaning in work narratives

This study examined how individuals make sense of their work narratives – autobiographical stories about their work lives – and the implications for individual well-being. A mixed methods approach was used to investigate relationships between meaning making, pathways to meaningfulness, job characteristics, job involvement, and psychological well-being. Survey responses and narrative themes from life story interviews were collected from 119 adults. A narrative coding scheme was developed to identify pathways to meaningful work. Results show that people made sense of their work lives most often by constructing themes about personal agency. The findings support prior research suggesting that socioeconomic factors, access to resources, and working conditions increase the likelihood of finding and benefiting from meaningful work. For individuals wishing to find meaning in their work, job design characteristics (e.g., decision authority, skill discretion), and developing a sense of agency can be levers for fostering meaning and well-being.

Preliminary Steps Toward Extracting the Specific Alternative Model for Personality Disorders Diagnoses From Criteria A and B Self-Reports

The Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) retains six specific personality disorders (PDs) that can be diagnosed based on Criterion A level of impairment and Criterion B maladaptive facets. Those specific diagnoses are still underresearched, despite the preference expressed by most PD scholars for a mixed/hybrid classification. This study explores the possibility of using Criterion A and B self-report questionnaires to extract the specific AMPD diagnoses. Plausible prevalence estimates were found in three samples (outpatient PD, private practice, community; N = 766) using the facet score ≥ 2 and t score > 65 methods for determining the presence of a Criterion B facet; diagnoses had meaningful correlations with external variables. This study provides evidence-albeit preliminary-that the extraction of the specific AMPD PDs from self-report questionnaires might be a viable avenue. Ultimately, it could promote the use and dissemination of those diagnoses for screening purposes in clinical and research settings.

Why, How, and When to Integrate Narrative Identity Within Dimensional Approaches to Personality Disorders

Researchers and clinicians are beginning to adopt dimensional approaches in the study and treatment of personality disorders (PD). Although dimensional approaches in the DSM-5 and ICD-11 hold considerable benefit, they need to better incorporate an appreciation of individuals' life stories, or narrative identities. Doing so will be necessary to flesh out the emphasis that both frameworks place on the role of identity in personality pathology. In this article, the authors review why, how, and when narrative identity theory and research can be integrated within dimensional approaches to PD. The authors describe established ways to assess narrative identity, review extant research on this construct in relation to PD, and signal areas crucial for future research. Stories lie at the heart of what it means to be human. The authors conclude that a greater consideration of the ways in which the self is storied can help further understanding and treatment of PD.

In their own words: Finding meaning in girls' experiences of puberty

The present study pairs narrative meaning-making with topic modeling to richly capture how girls choose to describe their experiences of change during puberty and to establish how these narratives map onto depressive symptoms. Participants (N = 125 girls; M_age  = 11.61 years; 90.40% White) wrote about changes during puberty and reported their level of pubertal development, relationships, and mood. The relationship between meaning-making and depressive symptoms was negatively moderated by early pubertal timing (d = .31) and positively moderated by more advanced pubertal status (d = .36). Exploratory analyses indicated that writing proportionally more about menstruation-related changes had a small effect on subsequent depressive symptoms (f²  = .12). Results provide a conceptual and methodological update to decades-old, landmark qualitative findings on girls' perceptions and assessments of experiences at puberty.