Meaning-making in an intergenerational project: a dialogic narrative analysis of young children’s interactions with older adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Sandra Lyndon ◽  
Helen Moss
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Meaning Making

scholarly journals Homeless on Main Street: Using Photovoice to Highlight Older Adults Among the Hidden Homeless

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 728-728
Author(s):  
H Shellae Versey
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Photo Elicitation ◽  
Service Agency ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Community Based Interventions ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Formerly Homeless

Abstract Homelessness is a reality for a growing number of Americans living in small towns and rural areas. However, unlike in cities, housing instability may be less visible. Using a photo-elicitation method (i.e., Photovoice), this study explores the meaning of place and obscured visibility to currently and formerly homeless older adults living in a small town in central Connecticut. Participants (N = 27) were recruited from a local service agency, given cameras and asked to photograph areas around town that were meaningful to them. Photographs were developed and followed by in-person, semi-structured interviews with participants in which photos and experiences during the project were discussed. Primary themes included belonging, generativity, social isolation, and place-making as meaning-making. The study culminated in a community photography exhibition in which photographs from the project were displayed in public spaces around town. Implications for community-based interventions to reach homeless groups in rural areas are discussed. Part of a symposium sponsored by the Qualitative Research Interest Group.

scholarly journals Revisiting a Boy Named Jim

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 160940691880916
Author(s):  
Katherine Bischoping
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Vicarious Traumatization ◽  
Childhood Experience ◽  
Good Story ◽  
Common Criteria ◽  
Qualitative Health Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analysis Strategies

Using examples from qualitative health research and from my childhood experience of reading a poem about a boy devoured by a lion (Belloc, 1907), I expand on a framework for reflexivity developed in Bischoping and Gazso (2016). This framework is unique in first synthesizing works from multidisciplinary narrative analysis research in order to arrive at common criteria for a “good” story: reportability, liveability, coherence, and fidelity. Next, each of these criteria is used to generate questions that can prompt reflexivity among qualitative researchers, regardless of whether they use narrative data or other narrative analysis strategies. These questions pertain to a broad span of issues, including appropriation, censorship, and the power to represent, using discomfort to guide insight, addressing vicarious traumatization, accommodating diverse participant populations, decolonizing ontology, and incorporating power and the social into analyses overly focused on individual meaning-making. Finally, I reflect on the affinities between narrative – in its imaginatively constructed, expressive, and open-ended qualities – and the reflexive impulse.

scholarly journals Metodologiska val i studien av biografiskt material - metodologiska val och deras epistemologiska konsekvenser i studien av biografiskt material

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Vanessa May
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Story Telling ◽  
Lone Mothers ◽  
The Creation

Epistemological Questions Concerning the Study of Biographical. Material: The Consequences of Choise of Methodology Using my own research on written life stories of Finnish lone mothers as a case study, this paper examines the consequences of choice of methodology when using biographical material as data. I focus on two methodo-logical alternatives: analysing biographical material as documents of preceding events, or as meaning-making con-structs. Treating biographical material as a gateway into studying events in people’s lives reduces the heuristic value of the material, and consequently questions of truth and reliability become problematic. Nevertheless, this still seems to be the preferred methodological alternative of many sociologists. If biographical material is analysed for its own sake, focussing on the creation of meaning through story-telling, the above-mentioned problems of truth and reliability diminish considerably. Using research on lone motherhood as an example, I ex-plore arguments for the use of narrative analysis, examining what it has to offer methodologically, theoreti-cally and conceptually.

scholarly journals How can technology support ageing in place in healthy older adults? A systematic review

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aline Ollevier ◽  
Gabriel Aguiar ◽  
Marco Palomino ◽  
Ingeborg Sylvia Simpelaere
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Cochrane Collaboration ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Controlled Trials ◽  
Ageing In Place ◽  
Healthy Older Adults

Abstract Background Ageing in place has recently gained visibility in healthcare policies and services. Technology has the potential to facilitate independence at home. The objective of this systematic review is to identify technologies that have been rigorously evaluated for supporting the ageing in place of healthy older adults. As well we explored the methods in engagement with technology in healthy older adults. Methods Databases Pubmed, Scopus, PsycInfo and Cinahl were consulted for clinical controlled trials or randomised controlled trials between 2014 and 2019. Studies were included if they contained a technological intervention and focussed on supporting healthy older adults’ independent living. PRISMA guidelines and the risk of bias tool of the Cochrane Collaboration were applied. Results The search identified 3662 articles of which only 7 made the final analysis. Through narrative analysis, technologies were categorised into three groups: accessible communication, emergency assistance and physical and mental well-being. Patient-centredness was extensively addressed by exploring how the participants engaged in the development and evaluation of the technology and how they were trained and monitored. Conclusions Literature concerning technology to support ageing, based on controlled trials and research performed in authentic home situations, is scarce. Thus, there is a need to investigate the subject in depth. The use of a neurofeedback headband, an accessible computer system, a wristband with pedometer, a biofeedback device and an online video platform can bring added value to ageing in place for healthy older adults. A patient-centred approach for developing, implementing and evaluating technology benefits ageing in place.

scholarly journals In Dialogue: How Writing to the Dead and the Living Can Increase Self-Awareness in Those Bereaved by Addiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 003022282097627
Author(s):  
Christina Thatcher
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Disenfranchised Grief ◽  
Positive Health ◽  
Negative Behaviors ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Socially Isolated

This article examines how writing can increase the self-awareness of a socially isolated and often stigmatized population: those bereaved by addiction. Writing about a traumatic event has been shown to increase self-awareness which can improve health and regulate negative behaviors. Using narrative analysis on the writing of individuals bereaved by addiction, this study found that participants were able to increase their self-awareness through writing to the dead, the living and themselves. Participants’ writing also demonstrated their attempts to make sense and make meaning out of their loss which are both strong predictors of positive health outcomes. All participants in this study demonstrated increased self-awareness as well as sense-making and/or meaning-making which can lead to improvements in behavior regulation, psychological health and physical heath. This suggests that writing may be a uniquely beneficial therapeutic intervention for those experiencing disenfranchised grief as a result of bereavement by addiction.

Older Adults’ Narratives of Seeking Mental Health Treatment: Making Sense of Mental Health Challenges and “Muddling Through” to Care

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (10) ◽  
pp. 1517-1528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Reynolds ◽  
Maria Medved ◽  
Corey S. Mackenzie ◽  
Laura Megan Funk ◽  
Lesley Koven
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Systems Of Care ◽  
Psychological Treatment ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
System Level ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Mental Health Issues

Older adults who experience challenges related to mental health are unlikely to seek professional help. The voices of older adults who have navigated through mental health issues and systems of care to arrive at psychological treatment are less well understood. We conducted individual interviews with 15 adults aged 61 to 86 who sought psychological treatment. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using narrative methods. We identified several main storylines that describe the meaning-making and treatment-seeking journeys of older adults: resistance to being labeled with mental health problems (telling stories of resistance, defining mental health issues in mysterious and uncontrollable terms, and experiencing internal role conflict); muddling through the help-seeking process (manifestations of chaos and system-level barriers); and emotional reactions to psychological treatment (hope, fear, and mistrust). Findings add to the literature base in the area of narrative gerontology, and highlight the complex experiences that older adults face when seeking psychological treatment.

Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation adapted as a method for narrative analysis to capture the existential realities expressed in stories from people living with Multiple Sclerosis

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 649-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Hardwick
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Sclerosis ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Chronic Conditions ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Living Well ◽  
The North ◽  
Insight Into

This paper draws on Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation to highlight aspects of the existential realities that emerge woven within the narratives of people living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). It aims to give social workers and other professionals involved in inter-disciplinary care insight into the meaning-making process and the existential realities interwoven in accounts of lived experience, thereby validating this aspect of experience. To support this approach it also aims to make explicit the method used and interpretation applied to elicit these features. Ten adults with MS from across the North of England were recruited to tell their story related to the onset of, and adjustment to MS. Two of the narratives are presented, and through these, the method used for interpretation derived from the theory of Paul Ricoeur is demonstrated. What emerge, threaded within the events told in a triptych of past, present and future life envisaged, are glimpses of existential realities that evoke universal recognition such as abandonment, loss, acceptance; solidarity, aloneness, suffering and finally calm. The paper concludes that, given chronic conditions like MS often predispose existential deliberation, it is important that these dimensions of lived experience are acknowledged in professional encounters that seek to manage the condition and support people living well with it.

Queer narratives and minority stress: Stories from lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals in Norway

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-114
Author(s):  
Oddgeir Synnes ◽  
Kirsti Malterud
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Minority Stress ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
National Archive ◽  
Cultural Scripts ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
And Bisexual

Aims: This study aims to explore how minority stress related to sexual orientation is reflected in narratives from lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals in Norway, with an impact for national public health policy. Methods: Arthur Frank’s dialogical narrative analysis was applied to personal stories from 65 persons self-referring to different categories of queer identities, submitted online anonymously to a Norwegian national archive for queer history. A purposive sample of three different stories were selected due to their capacity to illuminate how various aspects of minority stress are narrated in diverse interplays between individual voices and resources, and cultural scripts and societal influences. Results: Our analysis highlighted how stories may offer significant glimpses into the dynamic and complex fashioning of sexual identities, giving precious clues to the vulnerabilities and strengths of the narrator. Contemporary queer narratives from Norway reflect meaning-making related to sexual orientation that are influenced by, and expand upon, the classical scripts dominated by tragedy and tristesse, personal progress or simply no particular tension. LGB individuals of different ages and backgrounds had experienced aspects of minority stress related to their sexual orientation, with a substantial impact on identity, even when significant others were encouraging. Conclusions: The stories indicate that positive proximal processes, such as personal resilience and sympathetic environments, can support mental health and counteract negative effects of distal processes contributing to minority stress, such as heteronormativity and subtle microaggression. Public health strategies addressing attitudes to sexual orientation among the general population may contribute to diverse affirmative cultural scripts about queer lives, thereby enhancing queer mental health.

Developing a model of narrative analysis to investigate the role of social support in coping with traumatic war memories

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen J. Burnell ◽  
Nigel Hunt ◽  
Peter G. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Male Veterans ◽  
The Social ◽  
War Memories

Within clinical and health psychology, narrative is used to understand how people make meaning of events that challenge one’s believes about the self and the world e.g. the diagnosis of an illness or the experience of a traumatic event. This paper introduces a model of narrative analysis that can provide insight into the ways in which people make meaning of traumatic events and the types of resources that aid or hinder this process. The model, an adaptation of grounded narrative analysis (Murray, 2003), was applied at two levels (narrative form and narrative content) to the narratives of British male veterans of World War II (WWII) and post WWII veterans up to and including the Iraq war (2003– ). Narrative form concerned the coherence of the narrative, which was defined as an oriented, structured, affectively consistent, and integrated narrative, indicative of the reconciliation. Narrative content focused on the social support experiences of the veterans. Through this two level analysis, it was possible to make theoretical links between the types of social support that aid the meaning making process and help veterans to reconcile their experiences.

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