A Narrative Development Process to Enhance Mental Health Considering Recent Hippocampus Research

Abstract

Narrative development is fundamental to human mental health. Interventions providing individuals with the means to construct and recall robust and effective narratives are necessary in promoting positive mental health outcomes. The primary embodied location of personal narrative development is the hippocampus. Recent advances regarding the relationship among the hippocampus, narrative, and mental health are thus relevant concerning the hippocampal mechanisms that simultaneously function to map environmental position and to generate episodic memories. Consequently, this study considers the role of the hippocampus with a limited, six-database review of “hippocampus, narrative, mental health” that located 127 records, and included 14 reports for study. The results support creating and maintaining stable and coherent narratives as fundamental to human mental health. Without this, people distort facts in their personal accounts, their body functions are disrupted, and their DNA becomes altered (critical to cancer formation and development) in the effort to sustain these personal narratives. As such, narrative construction is found to lead to negative mental health in a variety of ways unless positively developed in a manner compatible with identified hippocampal functions. One intervention proven successful in enhancing robust and effective narratives that are stable and coherent is the Health Narratives Research Process developed for those researchers self-identifying as experiencing burnout. This process is outlined, and its most recent results presented, demonstrating not only improved mental health but doing so in support of identified hippocampal function—offering the opportunity for future research regarding the relationship among narrative development, mental health, and the hippocampus.