Memory and the transformation of experience in fictional narratives about middle childhood
Item
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Title
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Memory and the transformation of experience in fictional narratives about middle childhood
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:b5505e188ab4:11456
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identifier
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11898
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Creator
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Shustorovich, Ellen,
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Contributor
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Lissa Weinstein
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Clinical psychology | Childhood | Development | Fiction | Internalization | Memory | Narrative
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Abstract
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A narrative analysis of twelve short stories by an internationally acclaimed group of writers was performed in order to shed light on the nature of memory, in particular, which experiences of middle childhood are remembered by adults, how they are transformed, and what might account for that transformation. Short stories written for adults that took their protagonists' memories of the transition from childhood to adulthood as their explicit subject were chosen for analysis. The narrative analysis showed that the changing relationship with the parents and the emergence of an independent self were the predominant themes in the twelve stories. How the parents and the self are remembered in adulthood was conceptualized as the result of the protagonists' capacity to accomplish the work of internalization and mourning of the parental imagoes. It was proposed that faith that the parents can survive the child's attacks and destruction is a basic precondition for the capacity to mourn the parents, childhood dependence on them, and the child-self. It was shown that in the stories, the work of mourning was accomplished through elaboration of fantasy, and especially, through the expression of conflicting desires. While these fantasies were often destabilizing and overwhelming for the story protagonists, it appears that the exploratory drive and the illusions of narrative coherence and past knowledge served important containment and holding functions without which the work of mourning could not proceed. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
