Narrative meaning making, attachment, and psychological growth and stress

Abstract

Understanding how people turn episodes in time into subjectively meaningful narratives can shed light on adaptive meaning-making processes. Bridging attachment theory and narrative meaning making may elucidate how individuals distinctively narrate highly stressful and traumatic memories and whether such expression matters for psychological health. Single trauma narratives from 224 college participants were coded along dimensions of attachment theory, exploration and support seeking. Attachment style, stress-related growth, and event-related stress were also measured. Narrative exploration and support seeking were predictors of growth and stress, respectively, after controlling for personality traits and attachment. Importantly, we showed attachment moderates the relationship between narrative meaning making and psychological growth and stress. The relation between higher narrative exploration and increased growth levels was weaker for more avoidantly attached individuals, while the relation between lower narrative support seeking and increased stress levels was stronger for more anxiously attached individuals. Our findings indicate narrative processes matter for psychological health and may be utilized to different degrees depending on the narrator's attachment style.

Parents' traces in life: When and how parents are presented in spontaneous life narratives

“…The increased presence of parents in contaminative segments probably reflects the insufficient capacity to emotionally move on from experiences with parents that may have been disappointing, angering, or saddening, keeping the parents present in these segments but without raising understanding of parents or responsiveness to their voice (Table 5). This interpretation fits with studies showing that a lack of positive parenting leads to higher negativity in personal narratives and impairs, moreover, the capacity to emotionally adjust (Dumas, Lawford, Tieu, & Pratt, 2009;Graci & Fivush, 2017).…”

“…These mental schemas are represented as a cognitive script that facilitates the development and organization of a coherent autobiographical representation of attachment (Waters, Ruiz, & Roisman, 2017). Thus, parents become part of their children's personality through mental schemas presented in autobiographical memory, informing their narrative identity (Cicirelli, 1991;Graci & Fivush, 2017;Waters et al, 2017).…”

Resilience in inpatient palliative care nursing: a qualitative systematic review

“…Gaining insight through the processing of experience is the basis of reflection and the accompanying increased self-awareness is often referred to as ‘growth’ 53–57. Unfortunately studies show that nurses have little time for reflection, especially in organised groups, due to heavy workloads and inadequate staffing 58.…”

Love as story, love as storytelling

“…Attachment styles have also been associated with certain features of autobiographical narratives (e.g., Dunlop et al, 2018;Dunlop, Hanley, & McCoy, 2017;Graci & Fivush, 2017;Hudson & Fraley, 2018;Zaman & Fivush, 2013). For example, Graci and Fivush (2017) identified a negative relation between anxious attachment and the propensity to describe seeking adaptive social support within autobiographical narratives pertaining to traumatic experiences. With respect to avoidant attachment, Dunlop, Hanley, and McCoy (2017) noted that those who reported higher levels of this attachment dimension tended to disclose self-definitional stories from their romantic histories that were less emotionally positive than those with lower levels of avoidance.…”