An examination of trauma narratives: Narrative rumination, self-reflection, and identity in young adulthood

Trauma has the potential to challenge the self and identity development in ways unlike other personal experiences and, undoubtedly, necessitates meaning-making. The purpose of this study is to expand understanding of how young adults make meaning of traumatic experiences and how those processes, either adaptive self-reflection, meaning-making, or narrative rumination, relate to identity development.

Using qualitative methods and self-report measures, we examined reflective and ruminative narrative processes in 32 trauma narratives written by a sample of young adults. Narratives were examined as a function of identity status (measured by the Ego Identity Process Questionnaire; Balistreri, Busch-Rossnagel, & Geisinger, 1995) and level of identity distress (measured by the Identity Distress Survey; Berman, Montgomery, & Kurtines, 2004).

s: The narrative analysis suggested that young adults who constructed their narratives in adaptive self-reflective ways that were absent of rumination made meaning of their traumatic experience is ways that reflected an integrated sense of self. In contrast, those young adults who constructed their narrative in ruminative ways, characterized by brooding, self-doubt or criticism had unsuccessful meaning-making efforts. A combination of identity commitment (i.e., achieved and foreclosed) and low identity distress led to meaning-making and positive identity formation, whereas moratorium and diffused and high identity distress related to narrative rumination and either an absence of meaning-making or a fragmented sense of self. The findings suggest that narrative patterns differ across identity statuses and, more so, high and low reported identity distress. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.