Hsiu-Chu Tung
Psychiatric Social Work, Taipei City Hospital
Hsiu-Jung Chen
Department of Education and Counseling Psychology, National Taiwan Normal University
Lien-Chien Yang
General Psychiatry, Taipei City Hospital
The present study explored the changing trajectory of conceptual knowledge regarding the identity of self in relation to others of a wife who survived attachment trauma caused by an extramarital affair. Psychological trauma is usually overwhelming; due to avoidance of both negative feelings and intimate contact with her husband, memory disturbances disabled the wife from making self-referential meanings and from achieving a sense of self-continuity. The present study aimed to explore two aspects of a client’s meaning-making regarding how the self relates to others. The infidelity event caused the traumatized wife to experience narrative fragmentation. Through analysis and the identification of narrative indicators, the study demonstrates how practitioners can improve the outcomes of marital therapy.
Keywords: identity of self in relation to others; marital therapy; negative meaning; narrative fragmentation; responsiveness