LA NARRAZIONE AUTOBIOGRAFICA E IL FUNZIONAMENTO DEL SÉ

APPENDICE B
CODING SYSTEM FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY NARRATIVES IN
PSYCHOTHERAPY
(Singer & Bonalume, 2008)
This coding system is a systematic method of unitizing clinical and counselling interviews’ transcripts, different
oriented, in order to analyzing autobiographical memories. The process has three steps which enables the
researcher to: a) reliably subdivide interviews transcript into topic segments according to content shifts in
verbal dialogue, and b) to further subdivide and characterize these topic segments in terms of process of
narrative and autobiographical memories:
i. the presence of autobiographical aspects;
ii. the presence of narrative processes through which the client describes a life experience, a personal event
as opposed to non-narrative description of emotional experiences and people representations;
iii. analysis of autobiographical narrative memories, described above.
The application of the coding system entails the following: the researcher first reads the interview
transcript through, locating apparent shifts in themes or shifts in focus during the development of a particular
theme. The first reading of the transcript identifies the individual topic segments. Once identified, each topic
segment is further subdivided and coded in terms of shifts in narrative process modes.
STEP ONE: TOPIC DEFINITION
The segments refer to a specific “topic”, as an event description, a relationship, a person, a feeling or a state
of being (Bucci, 1997), to which we could assign a “title”.
The segments must contain verbal interchanges between client and therapist; so the beginning of a new topic
segment is indentified when a shift or change in subject occurred (Angus, 1996), either by
• an external stimulus, as:
i. questions posed by the therapist (“What happened?”), or even
ii. clear signs of a transition to a new topic (“so, now we could talk about your mother’s family”), or
• by an internal stimulus, as:
i. the client clearly introduces a new topic (“I’ve got to tell you what happened”) (Labov, 2006) , or
even
ii. a direct introductory statement (“Anyway, I remember another incident…” or “I want to tell to
you something that happened…”).
The ending of a topic segment is often marked by either
• an affirmation that what has been said has been understood by the therapist and/or
• the client or a relevant long pause in the conversation (ex. "Mm hmm" ) or
• a summary of the preceding issues.
Example 1.
At the beginning of the segment clinician poses clearly a question to a new topic – at the end, there is a
relevant long pause and a clinician’s summary.
CLIENT: so, perhaps because she came from an other period of time, an other époque, an other context…she
felt the need to tell fascinating stories for me as a child ... [shift- end Segment 13 ] [theme change- Segment
14 - mother’s family ]
CLINICIAN: What do you know about your mother’s family, your grandmother Paola and the grandfather?
CLIENT: Well, I know that they were noble people and they usually had rigid relationship one with the other
with many conventional things…
CLINICIAN: were they counts?
CLIENT: yes
CLINICIAN: both?
CLIENT: yes yes… and you know... he was a typical playboy, rich and… you know… I don’t’ have a good idea
of him…
CLINICIAN: about both?
CLIENT: no just about my grandfather… because I have never known him. My mum has ever talked well about
him… but I don’t have any memories by myself… but you know I don’t feel so closed to these anachronistic
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