Reclaiming “Mydentity”: Counterstorytelling to challenge injustice for racially and economically marginalized emerging adults

Emerging adulthood is an important period for identity development, the development of sociopolitical beliefs, and establishment of social roles and responsibilities. As a part of this development, counterstorytelling—narrative processes that contrast and challenge dominant oppressive narratives—may be used within counterspaces to facilitate positive identity development and to challenge injustice. In this qualitative study, we analyse interviews with and poetry from 12 emerging adults who were facilitators within a youth critical literacy program to understand how counterstorytelling functions to both facilitate identity development and challenge injustice. We found evidence of two superordinate themes: reclaiming identity, taking ownership of identity through counterstorytelling; and co-creating a narrative community, collectively building community through counterstorytelling. Findings support counterstorytelling promotes emergent identity development and works as a strategy for challenging injustice and oppression for marginalized emerging adults. Implications for practitioners and future research are discussed.     

The toiling lily: narrative life,responsibility, and the ontological ground of self-deception

In this essay, I argue that genuine responsibility and ethical self-understanding are possible without narrative—or, at least, that narrative is not always sufficient. In §2, I introduce and clarify a distinction between our ontological subjectivity and everyday practical identity—one made famous by Heidegger and Sartre. On the basis of this distinction, in §3 I argue that narrative is unable to ground ethical choice and decision. For, although acting in light of practical identities is something we do, it cannot wholly capture what it is to be who we are. Irrespective of whatever worldly projects and identities we press into, something about our subjectivity always remains unchanged. Narrative identity, which trades merely on practical identity, thus obscures this ontological dimension of life wherein human action, decision, choice, and responsibility truly originate. By way of conclusion, in §4, I briefly examine depictions of the narrative life found within the authorships of Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, and Voltaire, illustrating how self-narrative at times invites self-deception and annuls responsibility. A life of genuine responsibility demands more than what the most candid and best intentioned of self-narratives can supply us. Living the good life, I shall intimate, is thus not something that involves mere narrative. It depends, rather, on inwardness.     

Illness Identity in Adults with a Chronic Illness

The present study examines the concept of illness identity, the degree to which a chronic illness is integrated into one’s identity, in adults with a chronic illness by validating a new self-report questionnaire, the Illness Identity Questionnaire (IIQ). Self-report questionnaires on illness identity, psychological, and physical functioning were assessed in two samples: adults with congenital heart disease (22–78 year old; n?=?276) and with multisystem connective tissue disorders (systemic lupus erythematosus or systemic sclerosis; 17–81 year old; n?=?241). The IIQ could differentiate four illness identity states (i.e., engulfment, rejection, acceptance, and enrichment) in both samples, based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. All four subscales proved to be reliable. Rejection and engulfment were related to maladaptive psychological and physical functioning, whereas acceptance and enrichment were related to adaptive psychological and physical functioning. The present findings underscore the importance of the concept of illness identity. The IIQ, a self-report questionnaire, is introduced to measure four different illness identity states in adults with a chronic illness.     

Living into the story: agency and coherence in a longitudinal study of narrative identity development and mental health over the course of psychotherapy

Narrative identity is the internalized, evolving story of the self that each person crafts to provide his or her life with a sense of purpose and unity. A proliferation of empirical research studies focused on narrative identity have explored its relationship with psychological well-being. The present study is the first prospective, multiwave longitudinal investigation to examine short-term personality change via an emphasis on narrative identity as it relates to mental health. Forty-seven adults wrote rich personal narratives prior to beginning psychotherapy and after every session over 12 assessment points while concurrently completing a measure of mental health. Narratives were coded for the themes of agency and coherence, which capture the dual aims of narrative identity: purpose and unity. By applying in-depth thematic coding to the stories of participants, the present study produced 47 case studies of intraindividual personality development and mental health. By employing multilevel modeling with the entire set of nearly 600 narratives, the present study also identified robust trends of individual differences in narrative changes as they related to improvements in mental health. Results indicated that, across participants, the theme of agency, but not coherence, increased over the course of time. In addition, increases in agency were related to improvements in participants' mental health. Finally, lagged growth curve models revealed that changes in the theme of agency occurred prior to the associated improvements in mental health. This finding remained consistent across a variety of individual-difference variables including demographics, personality traits, and ego development.     

Getting the story right: a Reductionist narrative account of personal identity

A popular “Reductionist” account of personal identity unifies person stages into persons in virtue of their psychological continuity with one another. One objection to psychological continuity accounts is that there is more to our personal identity than just mere psychological continuity: there is also an active process of self-interpretation and self-creation. This criticism can be used to motivate a rival account of personal identity that appeals to the notion of a narrative. To the extent that they comment upon the issue, proponents of narrative accounts typically reject Reductionist metaphysics that (ontologically) reduce persons to aggregates of person stages. In contrast to this trend, we seek to develop a narrative account of personal identity from within Reductionist metaphysics: we think person stages are unified into persons in virtue of their narrative continuity with one another. We argue that this Reductionist version of the narrative account avoids some serious problems facing non-Reductionist versions of the narrative account.     

The distinguishing characteristics of narrative identity in adults with features of borderline personality disorder: an empirical investigation

While identity disturbance has long been considered one of the defining features of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), the present study marks only the third empirical investigation to assess it and the first to do so from the perspective of research on narrative identity. Drawing on the rich tradition of studying narrative identity, the present study examined identity disturbance in a group of 40 mid-life adults, 20 with features of BPD and a matched sample of 20 without BPD. Extensive life story interviews were analyzed for a variety of narrative elements and the themes of agency, communion fulfillment (but not communion), and narrative coherence significantly distinguished the stories of those people with features of BPD from those without the disorder. In addition, associations between the theme of agency and psychopathology were evident six and twelve months following the life story interview. This study seeks to bridge the mutually-informative fields of research on personality disorders and normal identity processes.     

In Search of HPA Axis Dysregulation in Child and Adolescent Depression

Dysregulation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis in adults with major depressive disorder is among the most consistent and robust biological findings in psychiatry. Given the importance of the adolescent transition to the development and recurrence of depressive phenomena over the lifespan, it is important to have an integrative perspective on research investigating the various components of HPA axis functioning among depressed young people. The present narrative review synthesizes evidence from the following five categories of studies conducted with children and adolescents: (1) those examining the HPA system’s response to the dexamethasone suppression test (DST); (2) those assessing basal HPA axis functioning; (3) those administering corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) challenge; (4) those incorporating psychological probes of the HPA axis; and (5) those examining HPA axis functioning in children of depressed mothers. Evidence is generally consistent with models of developmental psychopathology that hypothesize that atypical HPA axis functioning precedes the emergence of clinical levels of depression and that the HPA axis becomes increasingly dysregulated from child to adult manifestations of depression. Multidisciplinary approaches and longitudinal research designs that extend across development are needed to more clearly and usefully elucidate the role of the HPA axis in depression.     

Abandoning The Performance Narrative: Two Women's Stories of Transition from Professional Sport

Despite its potential to illuminate psychological processes within socio-cultural contexts, examples of narrative research are rare in sport psychology. In this study, we employed an analysis of narrative to explore two women's stories of living in, and withdrawing from, professional tournament golf gathered through life history interviews conducted over 6 years. Our findings suggest that immersion in elite sport culture shaped these women's identities around performance values of single-minded dedication to sport and prioritization of winning above all other areas of life. When the performance narrative ceased to “fit” their changing lives, both women, having no alternative narrative to guide their personal life stories, experienced narrative wreckage and considerable personal trauma. They required asylum—a place of refuge where performance values were no longer paramount—to story their lives around a relational narrative that reinstated a coherent identity while providing meaning and worth to life after golf.     

Fatigue,emotional functioning,and executive dysfunction in pediatric multiple sclerosis

Objective: Fatigue, depression, anxiety, and executive dysfunction are associated with multiple sclerosis (MS) in adults. Existing research suggests similar problems in pediatric MS, but relationships between these variables have not been investigated. This study investigates the associations between executive functioning and fatigue, emotional functioning, age of onset, and disease duration in pediatric MS.

Methods: Twenty-six MS or Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS) patients, ages 7 to 18, were evaluated through a multidisciplinary demyelinating diseases clinic. Participants completed neuropsychological screening including Verbal Fluency, Digit Span, and Trail-Making Test. Parents completed rating forms of behavioral, emotional, and executive functioning. Patients and parents completed questionnaires related to the patient’s quality of life and fatigue. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated to investigate relationships between fatigue, emotional functioning, and executive functioning, as well as to examine correlations between parent and child reports of fatigue.

Results: Rates of parent-reported anxiety, depression, fatigue, and executive dysfunction varied widely. Means were below average on the Trail-Making Test and average on Verbal Fluency and Digit Span, though scores varied widely. Various fatigue and emotional functioning indices—but not age of onset or disease duration—significantly correlated with various performance-based measures of executive functioning.

Conclusion: Results indicate pediatric MS is associated with some degree of fatigue, emotional difficulties, and executive dysfunction, the latter of which is associated with the two former. Notably, age of onset and disease duration did not significantly correlate with executive functioning. Results advance understanding of psychological and clinical variables related to neurocognitive outcomes in pediatric MS.     

Reliability and validity of the Basic Depression Questionnaire

Background/ObjectiveDepressive disorders have a high prevalence around the world. They present a great comorbidity with other disorders like anxiety, thereby making a differential diagnosis very difficult. The Basic Depression Questionnaire was designed to palliate this issue by isolating specific depression symptoms. Our aim is to study the reliability, factorial structure, and differential item functioning of this questionnaire. Method: The sample consisted of 1,397 adults without psychological problems (M_age = 29.76, SD = 11.25, 64.78% women) who completed the CBD. Results: We observed that none of the items presented differential functioning. A monofactorial structure was established. In this model a good fit was obtained by confirmatory factor analysis and a strict invariance by sex. The ordinal alpha was used to check the reliability and it fetched an index of .95. Conclusions: The Basic Depression Questionnaire has adequate psychometric properties. The absence of differential item functioning and the invariance by sex are guarantees of an adequate use to diagnose depression for men and women. So, its clinical use can help to differentiate between the specific diagnoses for depressive disorders and anxiety disorders.     

The coherence of critical event narratives and adolescents' psychological functioning

The present study examined the coherence of low- and high-point life-event narratives among adolescents (aged between 12 and 21 years) and their psychological functioning in terms of well-being and prosocial behaviour. The results showed robust age-related increases in narrative coherence. Age and gender significantly moderated the associations between narrative coherence and psychological functioning. Specifically, higher levels of coherence were significantly associated with prosocial behaviour only for older adolescents. Higher levels of narrative coherence were also associated with lower levels of well-being among adolescent boys, but not among adolescent girls. Results are discussed in terms of why coherent life-event narratives may not be linked to benefits for younger adolescents and for boys, and how low- and high-point life events both contribute to identity construction.     

The coherence of critical event narratives and adolescents' psychological functioning

The present study examined the coherence of low- and high-point life-event narratives among adolescents (aged between 12 and 21 years) and their psychological functioning in terms of well-being and prosocial behaviour. The results showed robust age-related increases in narrative coherence. Age and gender significantly moderated the associations between narrative coherence and psychological functioning. Specifically, higher levels of coherence were significantly associated with prosocial behaviour only for older adolescents. Higher levels of narrative coherence were also associated with lower levels of well-being among adolescent boys, but not among adolescent girls. Results are discussed in terms of why coherent life-event narratives may not be linked to benefits for younger adolescents and for boys, and how low- and high-point life events both contribute to identity construction.     

Narrative, identity and mental health: How men with serious mental illness re-story their lives through sport and exercise

ObjectivesIt has been suggested that mental illness threatens identity and sense of self when one's personal story is displaced by dominant illness narratives focussing on deficit and dysfunction. One role of therapy, therefore, is to allow individuals to re-story their life in a more positive way which facilitates the reconstruction of a meaningful identity and sense of self. This research explores the ways in which involvement in sport and exercise may play a part in this process.DesignQualitative analysis of narrative.MethodWe used an interpretive approach which included semi-structured interviews and participant observation with 11 men with serious mental illness to gather stories of participants’ sport and exercise experiences. We conducted an analysis of narrative to explore the more general narrative types which were evident in participants’ accounts.FindingsWe identified three narrative types underlying participants’ talk about sport and exercise: (a) an action narrative about “going places and doing stuff”; (b) an achievement narrative about accomplishment through effort, skill or courage; (c) a relationship narrative of shared experiences to talk about combined with opportunities to talk about those experiences. We note that these narrative types differ significantly from—and may be considered alternatives to—dominant illness narratives.ConclusionThis study provides an alternative perspective on how sport and exercise can help men with serious mental illness by providing the narrative resources which enabled participants to re-story aspects of their lives through creating and sharing personal stories through which they rebuilt or maintained a positive sense of self and identity.     

Continuity and change in the life story: a longitudinal study of autobiographical memories in emerging adulthood

If a person's internalized and evolving life story (narrative identity) is to be considered an integral feature of personality itself, then aspects of that story should manifest some continuity over time while also providing evidence regarding important personality change. Accordingly, college freshmen and seniors provided detailed written accounts of 10 key scenes in their life stories, and they repeated the same procedure 3 months and then 3 years later. The accounts were content analyzed for reliable narrative indices employed in previous studies of life stories: emotional tone, motivational themes (agency, communion, personal growth), and narrative complexity. The results showed substantial continuity over time for narrative complexity and positive (vs. negative) emotional tone and moderate but still significant continuity for themes of agency and growth. In addition, emerging adults (1) constructed more emotionally positive stories and showed (2) greater levels of emotional nuance and self-differentiation and (3) greater understanding of their own personal development in the 4th year of the study compared to the 1st year. The study is the first to demonstrate both temporal continuity and developmental change in narrative identity over time in a broad sampling of personally meaningful life-story scenes.     

Agency on the Move: Revisioning the Route to Social Change

Throughout the course of everyday life individuals enter into interactions in which an intricate relationship between agency and subordination can be observed: they sometimes act agentively and at other times—via discursive and/or interpersonal processes—their agency is reduced to objectness. Thus, theoretically we can think of constant dynamics of transfer of agency. It is argued that the transfer of agency between persons (or groups) is a fundamental quality of the societal discourses in which all persons are constituted. This transfer of agency occurs constantly throughout social interaction and at different levels of social functioning as individuals live and make meaning of their experiences. In light of this perspective, it is suggested that social change movements that aim to interrupt the transfer of agency and instead fix agency with one person (or one group of people) are inadequate. Rather, these movements can actually subvert their own agenda by producing problematic tensions in discourse and subjectivity. The self-defense movement, a component of the movement to end violence against women, is presented as a case study. The problematic and tension-filled positions and meanings the movement (re)produces for women are explored as an effect of denying any transfer of agency between women and men around issues of violence and gender oppression.     

Midline theta dissociates agentic extraversion and anhedonic depression

The agency facet of extraversion is related to individual differences in reward anticipation and has been linked to the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine has also been associated with components of anhedonia, which is one of the cardinal symptoms of depression and refers to lack of responsiveness to pleasurable stimuli. This raises the question whether low agency is associated with anhedonia symptoms in depression and if agency and anhedonia are characterized by similar neurobiological mechanisms. To address this hypothesis, we tested whether questionnaire measures of agency and anhedonia are correlated within depressed (n = 20) and non-depressed (n = 22) participants. Further, we investigated whether dopamine-related signatures in the EEG recorded during a gambling task (feedback-evoked theta activity, and frontal versus posterior theta activity) similarly relate to agency and anhedonia. Results indicated that anhedonia was significantly elevated in the depression group, and negatively correlated with agency. However, while theta activity evoked by negative vs. positive feedback was sensitive to anhedonia and depression status but unrelated to agency, frontal versus parietal theta activity predicted agency, but was unrelated to anhedonia and depression. Together, this double dissociation suggests that in spite of considerable phenotypical overlap, anhedonia and agency may be linked to partially distinct neurobiological markers.     

Predicting the psychological health of older adults: Interaction of age-based rejection sensitivity and discriminative facility

We hypothesize that older adults who anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to social rejection because of their old age (i.e., have high age-based rejection sensitivity) are vulnerable to depression and poor social functioning. We further hypothesize that the association between age-based rejection sensitivity and poor psychological health would be attenuated among older adults who possess adequate cognitive coping ability—they can discern and respond discriminatively to subtle variations in situational demands (i.e., have high discriminative facility). Based on the results of a focus group study, we constructed an age-based rejection sensitivity measure, which predicts greater depression, poorer social functioning, greater loneliness, and lower life satisfaction among individuals in late adulthood. As hypothesized, the relationship between age-based rejection sensitivity and poor psychological health was weaker among older adults with high (vs. low) discriminative facility.     

Emotion Regulation as a Moderator of Outcomes of Transdiagnostic Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Emotional Disorders

The aim of this study was to examine the potential moderating effect of baseline emotion regulation skills—cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression—on the relationship between treatment allocation and treatment outcomes in primary care patients with emotional symptoms. A total of 631 participants completed scales to evaluate emotion regulation, anxiety, depression, functioning, and quality of life (QOL). The moderation analysis was carried out using the SPSS PROCESS macro, version 3.5. Expressive suppression was a significant moderator in the relationship between treatment allocation and treatment outcomes in terms of symptoms of anxiety (b = −0.530, p = .026), depression (b = −0.812, p = .004), and QOL (b = 0.156, p = .048). Cognitive reappraisal acted as a moderator only in terms of QOL (b = 0.217, p = .028). The findings of this study show that participants with higher scores of expressive suppression benefited more from the addition of transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral therapy to treatment as usual (TAU) in terms of anxiety and depressive symptoms, and QOL. Individuals with higher levels of cognitive reappraisal obtained a greater benefit in terms of QOL from the addition of psychological treatment to TAU. These results underscore the relevant role that emotion regulation skills play in the outcomes of psychological therapy for emotional symptoms.     

Being the Shadow: Witnessing Schizophrenia

This essay discusses Susan Smiley’s documentary film, Out of the Shadow (2004), and Tina Kotulski’s memoir, Saving Millie: A Daughter’s Story of Surviving Her Mother’s Schizophrenia, as filmic and narrative treatments of their mother’s schizophrenia. Mildred Smiley, and her diagnosis of and treatment for schizophrenia, is at the center of both her daughters’ treatments of mental illness, and in these texts, all three become witnesses to the multiple experiences of mental illness and the multiple events of psychiatric power. As I will argue, these two texts are treatments of schizophrenia that both see and don’t see Mildred Smiley’s experience of mental illness. Through these texts, we—viewer and reader—are asked to look again, or to look for the first time, at mental illness, and we are positioned as having the agency to look or look away. As we look and try to make sense of what we see (and don’t see), we too participate in the production of mental illness as a category of analysis.     

Psychological needs,purpose in life,and problem video game playing among Chinese young adults

The negative impacts of excessive and problematic video game playing on both children and adults are attracting increasing concern. Based on self‐determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000), this study hypothesized that the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are positively associated with purpose in life, which in turn acts as a protective factor against problem video game playing among Chinese young adult players. Through a questionnaire survey with a sample of 165 Chinese adults aged between 18 and 30 years (mean age = 22.7 years), we found that perceived autonomy, competence, relatedness, and purpose in life were all negatively correlated with problem game playing. The demographic and psychological factors explained 38% of the variances of problem game playing. Specifically, gender, perceived relatedness, and purpose in life emerged as the three most salient predictors of problem game playing among the Chinese young adults. The mediating role of purpose in life was evidenced and it was found that purpose in life mediated the influences of the psychological needs proposed by SDT on problem game playing. Moreover, young men were significantly more susceptible to problem game playing than their female counterparts. To conclude, psychological needs and purpose in life influenced Chinese young adults’ vulnerability to problem game playing directly or indirectly. Intervention programs that encourage social involvement and voluntary work, as well as counseling service that helps clients to search for life purpose, are suggested for intervening in problem game playing among Chinese young adults.