NCJ Number
160772
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 20 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1996) Pages: 45-54
Date Published
1996
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study compares the narrative features of the life stories of child abuse survivors and nonvictimized respondents.
Abstract
In sample 1, respondents were 46 undergraduates at a large State university; of these, 23 respondents (18 females and 5 males) indicated they had experienced abuse (physical, emotional, or sexual) as children and had rated their experience as extremely traumatic. Respondents were given several pages of blank paper and asked to write a personal narrative that would describe the events and experiences that have shaped their lives and formed their feelings about self and the world. The scoring of the narratives focused on the use of self versus other pronouns and attention to past, present, and future events. A second sample was studied to investigate whether the findings from the first study were specific to the sample involved (i.e., traumatic child abuse survivors) or generalized to other traumatic experiences. Respondents indicated that they had experienced a parental divorce that was "extremely traumatic." The narratives of child abuse survivors differed from the comparison group on both general measures, i.e., emphasis on self versus others and emphasis on the past versus the present and the future. Child abuse survivors focused more on the past and de- emphasized the central role of the self. Greater emphasis on others was the best predictor of poor current coping among child abuse survivors. 2 tables and 10 references