Module IV·Article I·~1 min read
Narrative Psychology: Story as Identity
Narrative and the Human Sciences
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We Are the Stories We Tell About Ourselves
Dan McAdams (1993): personal identity is not a set of traits, but a narrative construction. We organize the experience of life into a story with a protagonist (myself), a plot (life path), a theme (what matters), a genre (tragedy, comedy, quest, confession). This is a “personal myth”—and it is real, because it guides our choices.
Therapy often works through restructuring the narrative: not “I have an anxiety disorder” (diagnosis-label), but “I am a person who, in certain situations, feels intense anxiety, and I am learning to regulate it” (a narrative with agency).
Narrative Flexibility
Psychological well-being correlates with narrative flexibility: the ability to tell the story of a difficult experience not only as victimization, but also as overcoming, learning, transformation. This is not denial—it is active reinterpretation.
Question for reflection: What narrative do you tell about a key professional failure? How has it changed over time? What did the change in narrative give to you?
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