THE ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVES CONSTRUCTED BY RECENTLY DIVORCED INDIVIDUALS

This study investigated narratives constructed by recently divorced individuals. At an initial lab visit (T1), 56 recently divorced individuals filled out self-report questionnaires and the first entry of a consecutive three-day writing task, which they were randomly assigned to either the Traditional Expressive Writing task (TEW) or the Novel Expressive Writing task (NEW). Participants returned for a second lab visit (T2) to complete the same self-report questionnaires. The written accounts were coded for narrative elements: redemption and contamination sequences, integrative and intrinsic memories, overall narrative coherence, and agency. Results indicated that narratives reflecting clearly indicated transitions from a negative to a positive situation, redemption sequences, significantly predicted greater psychological adjustment at T2 after accounting for selfreport measures taken at T1. Highly agentic narratives also were associated with greater psychological well-being at T2 after accounting for self-report measures at T1. These findings suggest that the narrative may provide insight into how people psychologically adjust to they divorce experience. Divorce, Narrative, & Psychological Well-being 4 The Analysis of Narratives Constructed by Recently Divorced Individuals Interpersonal attachments are intrinsic to human nature. People act according to their environment and seek nurturance through long-term relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003; Reis, Collins & Berscheid, 2000). Traumatic social upheavals, such as the dissolution of a marriage or romantic relationship, are among life’s most traumatic events (Amato, 2000; Emery, 1994; Frazier & Cook 1993). Divorce can lead to a number of psychological symptoms. According to Monroe, Rohde, Seeley, and Lewinsohn (1999) romantic breakups can even lead to the onset of Major Depressive Disorder in adolescents. However, romantic relationship breakups can also provide a unique setting for people to reconstruct their psychological lives and to inspire personal growth (Tashiro & Frasier, 2003; Buehler, 1987). The present investigation seeks to understand how recently divorced individuals’ written representations of their psychological experiences relate to their psychological well-being. This study can help us gain insight into not only how the narrative functions as a construction and reconstruction of the self, but also the ways in which narratives may provide unique information about how people are adjusting to their divorce experience. Following major life events, such as divorce, individuals reweave the fabric of their lives and in doing so they construct new (and hopefully meaningful) stories that help them come to understand their lives (Blow & Daniel, 2002; Alexander, 2005). McAdams (1996) refers to individual’s narrative constructions of their life experiences as life stories. Life stories comprise “an internalized and evolving narrative of the self that Divorce, Narrative, & Psychological Well-being 5 incorporates the reconstructed past, the perceived present, and the anticipated future” (p. 307). In essence, the life story is a psychological construction that allows the individual to make sense of their life experiences and to construct meaning in their lives (McAdams, 1996; McAdams, Reynolds, Lewis, Patten, Bowman, 2001). According to Strand (1997), stories do not merely reflect our lives, but they have an influence in shaping them, and according to Riessman (1990a), people use narratives to create meaning out of their life, to create possible selves, and to shape their reality. Narrative therapy has also been found to help people construct new realities (Strand, 1997). Narrative and divorce. Narratives about life transitions, such as divorce, are periods of meaning making and psychological reorganization. As such, these experiences provide a rich context in which to explore the process that people come to make sense of their life-changing experience (Bauer & McAdams, 2004b). Riessman (1990b) focused on the importance of language in the social experience; over time, participants made sense of their divorce by talking about their life-events in the form of narrative stories. In his study of how we use words and images to represent how we feel, Riessman (1991) used divorce as an example to examine the limitations of three different modes of representation: symptom counts, a list of marital complaints, and narrative accounts. He found that narrative is the most typical and favored way to represent a divorce account. Findings of this study also reveal that narratives tend to gravitate toward emotional experiences as to justify the reasoning behind such an extreme action as divorce. Riessman (1991) further suggested that narrative is the best mode of representation in Divorce, Narrative, & Psychological Well-being 6 divorce accounts because it allows the participant to express their experience in a personalized manner. When Mone (2008) interviewed families about their divorce experience, he found that people create meaning of the divorce through narrative. The divorce narratives tended to evolve around common themes: dichotomy and control. Parents occupied dichotomous views of their former spouse, and they showed a desire to assert cognitive, physical, legal, and communicative control over their former spouse. The finding that divorce narratives can be categorized into distinct themes proves that narrative depicts the psychological reconstruction process characteristic of divorce. King and Raspin (2004) studied the narratives of divorced women. Participants wrote narratives of their best possible selves, retrospectively before, and after the divorce. These narratives were correlated with subjective well-being (SWB) and ego development (ED). Thinking about one’s lost possible self was associated with lowered SWB and thinking about one’s current best possible self was associated with heightened SWB. Overall, lost and found selves, represented through narratives, depict the ways in which we reflect upon life experiences