Abstract:

The purpose of this dissertation was to qualitatively study narrative scrapbooking as a creative expression and transpersonal intervention for bereft and nonspecific adults in four separate, 6-week therapeutic support groups. Narrative scrapbooking includes collage, storytelling, life review, and narrative construction techniques in order to engage group participants in an ongoing dialogue regarding a significant relationship in their lives. Of the 23 adults who participated, 15 were Caucasian; 3 were Hispanic; one was African-American; one was German; one was Japanese-American; and 2 identified as ethnically mixed. Of the 23 participants, 10 explored grief issues and 13 explored various personal issues. An open-ended interview was conducted and recorded with 17 out of the 23 participants. This study asked four questions: (a)?How do participants experience narrative scrapbooking when it is empathically facilitated in a supplemental therapeutic group? (b)?How is the narrative scrapbook formed and how does it operate? (c)?Do transpersonal experiences arise, and if so, how? and (d)?How is the verbal narrative formed out of narrative scrapbooking and for what interpreted function? A mixed qualitative method incorporated thematic content analysis, narrative analysis with preconstructive concepts, and the creative response method. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed 23 different major aspects to narrative scrapbooking and several categories of minor themes, directly addressing the research questions. Narrative scrapbooking was seen by respondents to provide a means of symbolically creating an expression of meaning, while engaging with their narratives in an intuitive and nonverbal way. Fourteen minor transpersonal themes were coded under (a)?transpersonal phenomena elements, (b)?symbolism elements, (c)?temporal elements, and (d)?divine or sacred elements. Results from the narrative analysis revealed the participants used teleonomic narratives to help construct the diachronic events of the past, present, and future without the traditional demands of linear story construction.