Narrative Identity Reconstruction as Adaptive Growth During Mental Health Recovery: A Narrative Coaching Boardgame Approach

What makes Chinese adolescents "trapped" in severe mental illness? An interactionist perspective on self and identity

The aim of this study was to explore the self and identity perspectives among Chinese adolescents with severe mental illness (SMI), with a focus on their illness experience and subjective meaning of a formal diagnosis. Thirty-one Chinese adolescents were interviewed and the interview data were analysed strictly according to principles suggested by the constructivist grounded theory approach. Five theoretical codes emerged in this study, including changes of personal values and beliefs, accumulated persistent developmental challenges and personal stresses, ineffective coping strategies and development, symptoms and development of mental illness, and changed perceptions and understandings of self. A proposed model of "The dynamic interactions of Chinese adolescents' identity and mental illness", was constructed and visualized. The results revealed that adolescents' identity formation is a fluctuating and non-linear process, but tends to be predominantly negative. The negative self, as informed by long-term ineffective coping with accumulated persistent developmental challenges and stressful events, develops towards a more serious status of negative identity and contributes to relapse symptoms, although this impact occurs variably with perceived personal characteristics. Besides, some participants who had achieved a state of "Buddha-like numbness" made a conscious decision to live a seemingly normal life while coexisting with their illness. The study also highlighted the positive aspects of identity formation that can arise from the experience of illness, including an enhanced sense of realism and increased empathy. Our findings will imply much the need for person-centred treatment plan and services that take into account of individual situations.

Protean Career Orientation and Proactive Career Behaviors During School-to-Work Transition: Mechanism Exploration and Coaching Intervention

The school-to-work transition (STWT) period is crucial for students, and a protean career orientation (PCO) is important for a successful transition. The present study aimed to examine the effects of PCO on proactive career behaviors, the underlying mechanisms, and the development of PCO using a coaching approach. Study 1 was conducted based on 250 Chinese undergraduate and postgraduate students during STWT using self-reported questionnaires. Statistical results showed that PCO positively predicted proactive career behaviors and mediated by vocational identity and career adaptability. In Study 2, a randomized controlled trial was used to implement a coaching program that aimed at improving PCO and associated positive career outcomes. Statistical analyses found that the intervention group showed significant improvements in PCO, and the increase in PCO positively predicted increases in career adaptability, vocational identity, and proactive career behaviors.

Storytelling training to promote stakeholder engagement in research dissemination

Storytelling is increasingly recognized as a culturally relevant, human-centered strategy and has been linked to improvements in health knowledge, behavior, and outcomes. The Community Engagement Program of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research designed and implemented a storytelling training program as a potentially versatile approach to promote stakeholder engagement. Data collected from multiple sources, including participant ratings, responses to open-ended questions, and field notes, consistently pointed to high-level satisfaction and acceptability of the program. As a next step, the storytelling training process and its impact need to be further investigated.

Is There a Reformation Into Identity Achievement for Life After Elite Sport? A Journey of Identity Growth Paradox During Liminal Rites and Identity Moratorium

Athletes' identity development upon retirement from elite sport was examined through a model of self-reformation that integrates and builds on the theoretical underpinnings of identity development and liminality, while advancing seven propositions and supporting conceptual conjectures using findings from research on athletes' transition out of sport. As some elite athletes lose a salient athletic identity upon retiring from sport, they experience an identity crisis and enter the transition rites feeling in between their former athletic identity and future identity post-sport life, during which a temporary identity moratorium status is needed for identity growth. Given the developmental challenges encountered in moratorium and psychosocial processes necessary to establish a new, fulfilling identity for life after elite sport, we identified key conditions, triggers, and processes that advance how a journey of identity growth paradox experienced during liminality serves as a catalyst toward identity achievement. Elite athletes must be encouraged to persevere in this challenging identity search and delay commitments for as long as it is necessary to achieve identity growth despite experiencing uncomfortable feelings of confusion, void, and ambiguity during the liminal phase. Reforming into an achieved identity for life after elite sport would corroborate the successful navigation of transition, as elite athletes evolved into a synthesized sense of self by cementing, through a negotiated adaptation pathway, constructed identity commitments that will provide new beginnings and meaningful directions to their life after elite sport.

Not the story you want? Assessing the fit of a conceptual framework characterising mental health recovery narratives

PURPOSE

Narratives of recovery have been central to the development of the recovery approach in mental health. However, there has been a lack of clarity around definitions. A recent conceptual framework characterised recovery narratives based on a systematic review and narrative synthesis of existing literature, but was based on a limited sample. The aims of this study were to assess the relevance of the framework to the narratives of more diverse populations, and to develop a refined typology intended to inform narrative-based research, practice and intervention development.

METHOD

77 narrative interviews were conducted with respondents from four under-researched mental health sub-populations across England. Deductive and inductive analysis was used to assess the relevance of the dimensions and types of the preliminary typology to the interview narratives.

RESULTS

Five or more dimensions were identifiable within 97% of narratives. The preliminary typology was refined to include new definitions and types. The typology was found not to be relevant to two narratives, whose narrators expressed a preference for non-verbal communication. These are presented as case studies to define the limits of the typology.

CONCLUSION

The refined typology, based on the largest study to date of recovery narratives, provides a defensible theoretical base for clinical and research use with a range of clinical populations. Implications for practice include ensuring a heterogeneous selection of narratives as resources to support recovery, and developing new approaches to supporting non-verbal narrative construction.

Pilot study of a serious board game intervention to facilitate narrative identity reconstruction in mental health recovery

This quasi-experimental study explores the effects of a narrative coaching board game intervention aimed at enhancing participants’ sense of self-mastery as part of facilitating narrative identity reconstruction. Three mixed analyses of variance compared differences between clinical (n = 31) and non-clinical (n = 31) groups over time on a measure of mastery. There were no significant group-by-time interaction effects, but both groups demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in mastery over time. From a complex adaptive system perspective, changes may indicate adaptive growth in recovery. A serious board game may be a useful way of facilitating narrative identity reconstruction in recovery.