Complexity and incoherence of self-narration versus self-esteem and perceived social support in healthy people and individuals with a diagnosis of psychotic disorders.

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of the presented study was to compare self-narratives among participants with and without the experience of psychosis and to correlate this variable with self-esteem and perceived social support in studied groups.

Methods: The study group consisted of 31 adults with a diagnosis of psychosis according to ICD-10 (F20‒29), and the control group consisted of 31 adults without a psychiatric diagnosis. The stimulus for creating self-narratives by the participants' was the first part of McAdams' autobiographical interview, according to which the coherence and complexity of self-narratives were determined. Other tools used in the study were Rosenberg's self-esteem questionnaire and the Scale of Perceived Social Support by Zimet et al.

Results: The study showed that both groups differ significantly in the complexity of self-narratives (t = -3.185; p <0.05), but do not differ significantly in terms of coherence. Additionally, a correlation between the incoherence of self-narrative and self-esteem in the control group was observed (r = -0.455; p <0.05).

Conclusions: The self-narratives of people with a diagnosis of psychotic disorders turned out to be less complex than the self-narratives of people from the healthy group, while the incoherence was negatively correlated with self-esteem, but only in the control group. The clinical and control groups did not differ in terms of self-narrative incoherence. The presented study shows the possibilities of using qualitative methods and autobiographical interviews to analyse the language of mentally ill and healthy people and linking self-narratives with psychological characteristics. Both - the research procedure and the results have their limitations, which are discussed in the article.