Abstract
The main goal of this study was to identify the impact of a narrative construction of a life challenge - discovering to have a child with autism - on the meaning of life and on resources for coping depending on the challenge’s novelty, i.e., the number of years from the diagnosis. Three hundred and sixty four mothers of children with autism participated in a long-term 3 × 2 experiment. Half of the mothers had children with autism at the age of 9–12 years. For the remaining half, having children with autism was a new and stressful life situation. Their children were 2–3 years old and just diagnosed by a medical center as having autism spectrum disorder. The mothers were assigned to one of three study conditions: they were either asked to write stories of their motherhood or to describe their children’s behavior on a questionnaire or they did not participate in any tasks. One month and then 4 months after this task the participants completed measures of meaning of life and several well-being scales. The results indicated that following the narrative writing the participants had the highest scores on the meaning of life and well-being scales. This affect was sustained over 4 months and was significant only for mothers with older children. The mediation analysis showed that the effects of the experimental conditions on different well-being scales were mediated by the changes in perceived meaning of life. The results suggest that construction of self-narratives of difficult ongoing challenges facilitates meaning making and subsequently strengthens resources for coping. However, it seems that a meaning-making construction of such self-story may be blocked by the uncertainty and stress caused by novelty of the challenging situation.
Highlights
Many studies revealed that writing about one’s traumatic or negative past experiences provides a variety of psychological and health benefits, including improvement in psychological well-being, social relationships, professional and academic achievements, physiological functioning measured in a variety of ways (Pennebaker, 1993; Pennebaker and Seagal, 1999; Frattaroli, 2006; Burton and King, 2008; Niederhoffer and Pennebaker, 2009), and symptom reduction in patients with chronic illness (Smyth et al, 1999)
Narratives of Motherhood for Mothers with Children with Autism some sense in that event, for example as being meaningful to their life. It seems that a narrative construction of an event, i.e., a specific understanding of the event and its broader context in the frame of a personal story, may be a crucial condition of these outcomes (Bruner, 1990; Baumeister and Newman, 1994; Smyth et al, 2001; Ljubomirski et al, 2006)
The aim of the study was to identify the consequences of a narrative construction of an ongoing challenge, occurring in one’s past, present, and in anticipated future
Summary
Many studies revealed that writing about one’s traumatic or negative past experiences provides a variety of psychological and health benefits, including improvement in psychological well-being, social relationships, professional and academic achievements, physiological functioning measured in a variety of ways (Pennebaker, 1993; Pennebaker and Seagal, 1999; Frattaroli, 2006; Burton and King, 2008; Niederhoffer and Pennebaker, 2009), and symptom reduction in patients with chronic illness (Smyth et al, 1999). It allows a person to take more cognitive control over the past and over the ongoing and foreseen events This narrative meaning makes a person more trustful in their own abilities and competences, and more hopeful, which results in higher self-esteem, and in hope for success. These processes should facilitate positive emotions in interactions of mothers of children with autism (Brown and Brown, 2003; Schalock, 2004). Better cognitive control and positive emotions facilitate more open and creative thinking about one’s family’s future as well as growing optimism regarding a positive trajectory of one’s child’s development and life in the family All these factors play a role of mental resources when coping with a challenge
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