Jessica Hoon
PSY 3211-101
Paper 3
Narrative Identity is the story one gathers about themselves, much like an autobiography. As Chapter 7 in the textbook discusses, it is essentially the tale that individuals tell when asked to share their life’s journey thus far. Just as there are many reoccurring themes in novels, in the text, there are many motifs present in research on narrative identity. This topic was especially compelling as it is something we encounter each and every time we meet a new person. Inevitably, we seek to connect by learning more about one another’s stories. It never occurred to me the way we construct our tales could have an influence on our psychological health. Day to day, it is our perspectives on a situation that in turn influence the way we behave and then our developing personality, i.e. whether we choose to fight something unjust or roll over, or perhaps whether we found ourselves glad for a negative relationship outcome and it affected our behavior in a new relationship.
In the study on narrative identity and mental health and physical health conducted by Adler, Turner, Monahan, Walder-Biesanz, Harmeling, and Oltmann in 2015, four themes are the primary focus of the research. These four themes are redemption, agency, communion, and contamination. Redemption is the occurrence of trauma or tragedy in an individual’s life and the experience eventually resulted in a positive outcome. Agency is a common theme in American television in which an individual fights for some sense of control over their life and therefore attempt to strive for a positive outcome. Communion is not unlike agency, but instead focuses on interpersonal relationships as a source of strength in times of struggle. These three themes have been found in previous research to be positively associated with positive mental health outcomes (Adler, et al., 2015). The only exception is that contamination is negatively correlated with positive mental health outcomes (Adler, et al., 2015). Contamination is the opposite of redemption in that an individual’s narration of an experience transitions from upbeat to extremely pessimistic.
Two studies were conducted in this article to find associations in the relationships between mental health over time related to physical health and these four themes in participant’s narrative identities (Adler, et al., 2015). In the first study, participants’ narrative identities were collected with the specification that each participant share a major health hurdle they had to face. All participants were in the age range of 55 to 59, thus likely to have experienced a health-related challenge (Adler, et al., 2015). There were 89 participants in the first study (Adler, et al., 2015). All data was to be collected once a year for four years to measure mental health outcomes over time (Adler, et al., 2015). Due to prior research on the four motifs, it was hypothesized in this study that if communion, agency, and redemption were measured at higher levels and contamination levels scored low, then better mental health over the four years should be associated with those levels (Adler, et al., 2015). The researchers found significant positive correlations between good mental health and redemption and agency (Adler, et al., 2015). Unexpectedly, communion was found to have no significant correlation with mental health of the participants over the four years (Adler, et al., 2015). However, lower scores of contamination were found by the researchers to be negatively associated with positive mental health trajectories over time (Adler, et al., 2015). This preliminary study conducted by Adler, et al., (2015) provides support that the way that individuals construct their narrative identity, meaning the themes they choose for their ‘chapters,’ have an influence over their overall longitudinal mental health. More specifically, the motifs of redemption and agency have been found to encourage and shore up healthier mental health through the years (Adler, et al., 2015).
In the second study conducted by the same researchers, they sought to corroborate the previous studies findings in the context of the onset and diagnosis of a significant illness (Adler, et al., 2015). Because the first studies findings were mostly supported during low health points in life, the researchers sought to replicate the first studies findings and suss out whether the relationships between narrative identity themes and mental health are only associated with the inception of physical illness or if they can be replicated across the sample (Adler, et al., 2015). The sample consisted of 54 participants which were evenly divided between 27 participants who experienced a considerable medical diagnosis during the study and 27 healthy participants (Adler, et al., 2015). Surprisingly enough, the researchers resulted in a null finding – they found no significant correlations between narrative identity themes and mental health or physical health (Adler, et al., 2015). When examining the cases of the individuals interviews further, Adler, et al. (2015) suggested that it was perhaps the early hardships that participants experienced that then armed them to face the weighty battle of a serious physical illness later in life. Early themes of the participants stories allowed the researchers to propose that early experiences of redemption and agency could arm people the wherewithal to face battles later in life (Adler, et al., 2015).
These findings of both studies attest that the way we construct our narrative identity could serve as a support feature for better mental health over time, as well as a protective feature for our mental health for future difficult experiences. While this study does add to the research already present on this topic, I would wonder how this information could be used in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) based treatment. It seems to me that CBT could be modified as a tool to help clients mold their narrative identities to different themes as a way to sustain a psychologically healthier outcome. Not only that, if CBT could be applied to successfully help clients ‘re-write’ their narrative identities with more helpful motifs, the research in these studies have demonstrated the sustainability of better mental health when maintaining effective themes like redemption and agency. Improving upon a client’s current themes and motifs could redirect their perspective in a more direct and dependable way. Additionally, it could present itself as a more tangible way for individuals suffering from mental health issues to wrap their minds around a new way of thinking. On its most simplified face, CBT therapies have their own roadblocks when clients resist the idea of ‘changing their way of thinking.’ However, there isn’t a person out there who isn’t familiar with both the different structures of stories and the way their own story has gone. If put into the context of a narrative with different ‘chapters’ or ‘arcs,’ perhaps this is a new way that clinicians could address the difficult problem of clients resisting changing their mindset.
Adler, J. M., Turner, A. F., Brookshier, K. M., Monahan, C., Walder-Biesanz, I., Harmeling, L. H., Oltmanns, T. F. (2015). Variation in narrative identity is associated with trajectories of mental health over several years. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(3), 476-496. https://doi-org.proxy006.nclive.org/10.1037/a0038601