Exploratory Study of Depressed Adolescents' Life Narratives

Interpersonal Relationship Aspects as Perceived Risk and Social Support Factors in a Clinical Sample of Adolescents With Depression

The goal of this qualitative study was to explore how adolescents with diagnosed depression describe their social relationships with peers, parents and teachers. Several previous findings have revealed the dual role of interpersonal relationships — as a stressor and contributor to different mental disorders, and also as a source of social support for mental health. Previous studies confirmed the value of a qualitative approach in exploring the self-perceived experiences of adolescents. The research group consisted of 28 adolescents, aged 13–17, with a diagnosis of depression. Individual semistructured interviews (Children's Depression Rating Scale Revised; CDRS-R) were applied in this study, which were analysed using thematic analysis. The results have both scientific and practical value, as well as relevance for the development of preventive interventions targeted at well-being and mental health of adolescents.

Past and future life stories in adolescents with anxiety disorders: a comparison with community controls

The ability to tell one's past life story and to imagine one's personal future serves important social and life defining functions like maintaining identity. In the present study, 34 adolescents diagnosed with anxiety disorders (age 9-17) and 34 community based controls wrote stories about their weekend, their past and future life stories and generated cultural life scripts. Cultural life scripts are culturally shared assumptions as to the order and timing of important life events. Adolescents in the anxiety group had less coherent past and future life stories compared to controls. Anxious adolescents also remembered their pasts as emotionally more negative than community controls, despite the fact that both groups described equally many negative experiences from their pasts. Anxious adolescents imagined their futures to consist mainly of positive events, however, they still expected their futures to be less positive than the control group, and their future life stories were more abstract and included fewer cultural life script events than the control group. Weekend stories did not differ in emotional tone and coherence between groups, suggesting that differences in past and future life stories are not due to differences in general narrative ability.