The Impact of Self-Narrative Framing of a Close Person’s Sudden Death on Coping With the Meaning in Life

Abstract

Sixty-eight participants who lost a close one on a sudden death were assigned to one of two experimental conditions. They described own story of relations with the deceased person or answered a questionnaire regarding the mourning process. The effects of self-story construction were measured after 2 weeks and then 3 months. The self-story framing of the death increased meaning in life and stress-related growth, and decreased anxiety. The effects became most apparent 3 months after the story description. Higher plot structuring was related to lower anxiety and greater feeling of purpose in life.

Keywords:

• Self-narratives
• Coping with sudden death of close person
• Threatened meaning in life
• Existential anxiety
• Benevolence of narrative framing of traumatic event

Additional information

Funding

Research was supported by grant from National Science Centre, Poland NCN 2013/11/B/HS6/01312 to J. Trzebiński and is a part of doctoral dissertation of E. Odachowska, thesis supervisor.