Trauma narratives in posttraumatic stress disorder: A review
Abstract
Nineteen empirical studies providing evidence about the nature of trauma narratives in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were reviewed. Selected studies had participants with a diagnosis of PTSD or with PTSD symptoms. The studies used either linguistic indices or participants' rating of narrative quality. There was evidence of a relationship between PTSD specific pathology and the occurrence of sensory/perceptual references and disturbed temporal aspects. Evidence for PTSD-related narrative fragmentation was inconclusive, and there were little data about specific self-referential content. Poor validity and confusion of content and syntactic aspects of narrative organization limited the data on the organization of PTSD narratives. Approaches that address some of these limitations and allow narrative-based evaluation of memory for trauma in PTSD are outlined.
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Several prior reviews have critically examined the link between memory fragmentation and PTSD.
“Several reviews have critically examined the relationship between memory fragmentation and PTSD (see O'Kearney & Perrott, 2006; Zoellner & Bittinger, 2004).”
From Dissociation and memory fragmentation in post-traumatic stress disorder: An evaluation of the dissociative encoding hypothesis (2012) · cites this paper as O'Kearney & Perrott, 2006
Other reviews examining fragmentation and PTSD more broadly have not found overwhelming evidence that fragmentation plays a crucial role in PTSD.
“other reviews that have looked more broadly at fragmentation and PTSD have also failed to find overwhelming evidence for a crucial role of fragmentation in PTSD (e.g., O'Kearney & Perrott, 2006; Zoellner & Bittinger, 2004).”
From Dissociation and memory fragmentation in post-traumatic stress disorder: An evaluation of the dissociative encoding hypothesis (2012) · cites this paper as O'Kearney & Perrott, 2006
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“represent the subjective, less filtered experience of the trauma, could represent post-trauma adjustment, even before extensive psychological processing and meaning making has occurred.(33) Exciting developments in natural language processing (NLP) computational methods reveal that algorithms can analyze human languag…”
- Authors
- O'Kearney, R., & Perrott, K.
- Affiliations
- Australian National University (AU)
- Venue
- Journal of Traumatic Stress
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2006
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 81-93
- ISSN
- 0894-9867 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-6598
- OpenAlex
- W2049199371
- Cited by
- 210
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 0.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Traumatic Stress (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Keywords
- post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma narratives, fragmented narrative, narrative organization, narrative quality
- MeSH terms
- Affect, Humans, Language, Memory, Semantics, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Vocabulary, Narration
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