A Qualitative Investigation into the Cultural Master Narrative for Overcoming Trauma and Adversity in the United Kingdom

Research in the field of narrative psychology has found that redemption-a narrative sequence in which people recount emotionally negative experiences as having positive endings-is a useful mechanism for coping with adversity. Redemption has been viewed as a cultural master narrative in North America, providing individuals with a socially valued script for narrating challenging life experiences. Presently little research has examined the presence and function of the redemption narrative outside of North American contexts. The aim of this qualitative study, therefore, was to identify themes in U.K. individuals' narratives of trauma and adversity to gain insight into the content of the master narrative for meaning-making in the U.K. Sixty-five participants (57 females, M-age = 21.97, SD = 7.24) with little to no experience of lifetime adversity were recruited into an online survey. Participants answered open-ended questions adopting the perspective of a survivor from a selected U.K. national tragedy, focusing on how they felt survivors could recover from trauma. We identified 2 themes in our thematic analysis that were relevant to recovery: recuperation and redemption. Recuperation was most commonly reported, it was described as a gradual lessening of symptoms over time and the ability to cope with the lasting emotional and physical scars. Our findings suggest that redemption is not necessarily the dominant cultural script in the U.K. for guiding recovery in the aftermath of trauma.