title: Self-defining memories, scripts, and the life story: narrative identity in personality and psychotherapy.
abstract: An integrative model of narrative identity builds on a dual memory system that draws on episodic memory and a long-term self to generate autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memories related to critical goals in a lifetime period lead to life-story memories, which in turn become self-defining memories when linked to an individual's enduring concerns. Self-defining memories that share repetitive emotion-outcome sequences yield narrative scripts, abstracted templates that filter cognitive-affective processing. The life story is the individual's overarching narrative that provides unity and purpose over the life course. Healthy narrative identity combines memory specificity with adaptive meaning-making to achieve insight and well-being, as demonstrated through a literature review of personality and clinical research, as well as new findings from our own research program. A clinical case study drawing on this narrative identity model is also presented with implications for treatment and research.
authors.affiliation: Connecticut College.
authors.forename: Jefferson A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Singer
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Blagov
authors.forename: Meredith
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berry
authors.forename: Kathryn M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Oost
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D033262:Narration; D010551:Personality; D011613:Psychotherapy; D012649:Self Concept