Trauma as the plot of a life story

Context and relevance. This article highlights the potential of using qualitative methodology in the study of human traumatic experience. Based on the analysis of “life story”, the article addresses the question of how an individual dynamically perceives and interprets lived experience, how they make sense of turning points in their life that may serve as a prerequisite for the reconstruction of identity. Objective: to study the life history of an aging person and to describe the manifestations of trauma in the story. Methods and materials. Biographical narrative interviews and biographical narrative analysis were used as methods to investigate an individual case. Results. It is revealed that the trauma in the story manifests itself in the scarcity of self-description resources, which indicates an inability to connect among themselves what was experienced as an experience of suffering, meaningfully and conveyed verbally. Resistance to disturbing memories and avoidance of threatening coherence of connections in the story are found. Temporal displacements and idealization of the pre-traumatic period of life are recorded. Conclusions. Trauma sets the trajectory of a biographical narrative without becoming the subject of that narrative, implicitly becoming a structuring principle during the story. The case chosen for narrative analysis presented in the article reflects the features of such a narrative, where trauma is the plot of a life story.

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