Content Analysis of Expressive Writing Narratives About Stressful Relational Events Using Interpersonal Decentering

Abstract

This study used secondary analysis of data from two studies of expressive writing about stressful relational events to first describe the relations of word use to social-cognitive maturity of role-taking using Feffer’s Interpersonal Decentering scoring system and then to test hypotheses about active processing of relational information versus event closure. This scoring system for imaginative Thematic Apperception Test stories was adapted for expressive writing protocols and related to proportions of cognitive and emotional words used, relationship characteristics, and the subjective experience of writing. Relational events included relationship breakups (including divorce), loved one’s illness or death, and abuse. Decentering maturity was positively correlated with cognitive and insight words and with positive emotion words in both studies’ narratives, and also with self-rated experiences of emotional intensity in the low closure group only. Gender differences were consistent with gender theories applied to relational stressors.

Clients’ TAT Interpersonal Decentering Predicts Psychotherapy Retention and Process

“…Clients’ psychological mindedness and insight into relational patterns are both important elements of psychodynamic psychotherapy and constructs of interest for interpersonal decentering. Jenkins and colleagues (2013) found that expressive writing essays that scored higher in interpersonal decentering contained more insight words. Might clients who engaged more mature interpersonal decentering processes be more likely to notice and recall psychodynamic interventions than cognitive-behavioral ones?…”

“…Feffer’s interpersonal decentering (Feffer, Leeper, Dobbs, Jenkins, & Perez, 2008; Leeper, Dobbs, & Jenkins, 2008) is a content analysis scoring system for thematic apperceptive techniques and other narrative tasks (Jenkins, Austin, & Boals, 2013; Jenkins et al, 2015). Mature decentering is conceptualized as the tendency to mobilize internalized reflective thoughts about people’s mental states when explaining their behavior (including one’s own); for example, when telling stories to explain the actions of people in a series of pictures (Jenkins et al, 2015).…”

“…Jenkins et al (2015) distinguished violence perpetrators (who scored lower) from domestic violence survivors and other clinic clients with nonproblematic relationships. Applied to expressive writing intervention essays about stressful relational events, higher decentering scores were associated with evidence of activated relational information processing (use of more cognitive words, especially insight words) and more positive emotion words (Jenkins et al, 2013), these word counts being associated with improved health after relational losses (Pennebaker, Mayne, & Francis, 1997). As a measure of spontaneously mobilized mature social cognitive processes, decentering shows promise in relation to low egocentrism, psychological mindedness, and engagement in psychotherapy.…”

What is expressed in expressive writing: Gendered differences in narrative processes for low closure interpersonal and impersonal stressors.

“…For the purpose of discourse analysis, the fictionality of a narrative has no bearing on its connection to real-life social cognition (Mar, 2018). Jenkins et al (2013) found that interpersonal decentering scored from EW essays was significantly related to cognitive, insight, and positive emotional word use in describing stressful interpersonal events. They suggested that decentering could provide a theory-based integrative contextual framework for understanding the previous fragmented LIWC findings.…”

“…A few researchers have used more global ratings of narrative characteristics such as meaning making and narrative coherence (Klein & Boals, 2010). A more theory-grounded and empirically anchored approach, Feffer's interpersonal decentering scoring system (M. Feffer et al, 2008), measures interpersonal role-taking in narrative data (Jenkins et al, 2013). These three analysis systems appear to reflect more meaningful processing of stress response information than word-counting methods do.…”