Nadir experiences and ego-integrity: types of narrative enactment

Abstract

Coming to terms with negative life experiences is a way of reaching ego-integrity in mature age, a development task belonging to the last phase of Erikson's theory of psycho-social development. This study explores fundamental tensions between negative life experiences and ego-integrity through the lens of narrative enactment, i.e. by looking at how nadir experiences are constructed in the narratives of study participants. From 166 potential participants, we selected life-story narratives of 42 highly ego-integrated older adults based on a self-rated ego-integrity scale. Data were analysed using the narrative approach, where ageing is perceived as autobiographical work and narrativity is viewed as enactment of the constitutive event of ‘trouble’. Our results suggest a subtle classification of five distinct types of narrative enactment: ‘it turned out well’, ‘I managed to cope with it’, ‘validation with respect to future development’, ‘acquisition of a new attitude’ and, finally, ‘justification of a hard decision’. Each of these enactment types is defined by a particular configuration of narrative categories: agency in a negative event, agency in a positive resolution, reflexivity and construction of moral identity. Our results highlight the meaning of processing and reconstruction of negative life experiences and the various narrative pathways this process can follow in highly ego-integrated older adults.