Emotion and Narrative
Perspectives in Autobiographical Storytelling
Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction Series

Emotions have a life beyond the immediate eliciting situation, as they tend to be shared with others by putting the experience in narrative form. Narrating emotions helps us to express, understand, and share them: the way we tell stories influences how others react to our emotions, and impacts how we cope with emotions ourselves. In Emotion and Narrative, Habermas introduces the forms of oral narratives of personal experiences, and highlights a narrative's capacity to integrate various personal and temporal perspectives. Via theoretical proposals richly illustrated with oral narratives from clinical and non-clinical samples, he demonstrates how the form and variety of perspectives represented in stories strongly, yet unnoticeably, influence the emotional reactions of listeners. For instance, narrators defend themselves against negativity and undesired views of themselves by excluding perspectives from narratives. Habermas shows how parents can help children, and psychotherapists can assist patients, to enrich their narratives with additional perspectives.

1. Emotions; Part I. Emotions in Oral Autobiographical Narratives: 2. Narrative structure; 3. Narrative evaluations; 4. Narrative perspectives; Part II. How Narratives Evoke Emotions: 5. Kinds of emotional effects of narratives; 6. Narrative perspectives guide recipient emotions; 7. Context and incongruencies also affect emotional response; Part III. Narratives Reflect Defense Against Emotions, and Narrating Helps Cope with Them; 8. Narratives reflect narrators' ability to bear emotions; 9. The healing power of narrating; 10. Working through by narrating experiences repeatedly; Part IV. Transformative Co-Narratives by Parents and Therapists: 11. Co-narrating emotional events; 12. Co-narrating in psychotherapy; 13. Narrative perspectives in emotions; References; Index.

Tilmann Habermas teaches psychoanalysis at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt Am Main, Germany. His work on the development of the life story in adolescence has evolved into a sixteen-year longitudinal study of life narratives.