Reading trauma: exploring the relationship between narrative and coping

Patterson, W, 2000. Reading trauma: exploring the relationship between narrative and coping. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

This thesis argues that narrative is the primary way in which we make meaning of our experiences in the world. The concept of narrative is liberated from the constraints of stracturalist, narratological or literary perspectives through a tightly drawn re-definition of the term which is non-eventcentric, and is based on the distinction which can be made between narrative and story and on a conceptualisation of narrative which is based on the relationship between story and life.

The central focus of the work is how, precisely, narrative enables us to make meaning of our experiences and, in particular, how the process of narration in the aftermath of trauma is related to the process of coping. The database for the study is made up of personal experience narratives of trauma. These are analysed in the terms of the model of the trauma narrative proposed by the thesis, and a wide range of structural and linguistic features are identified, analysed, and interpreted. These interpretations are made in dialogue with psychological approaches to trauma.

Moving beyond the study of trauma, the thesis argues that we live our lives within a time/narrative framework. The work of Paul Ricoeur is used to develop the notion of a life story cycle whereby experience, memory, narration, reading and interpretation are understood as integrated processes within the relationship between life and story.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Patterson, W.
Date:	2000
ISBN:	9781369315851
Identifiers:	Number Type PQ10183380 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	22 Sep 2020 10:46
Last Modified:	16 Aug 2023 10:14
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40875

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