The evolution of narrative identity in a "returning home" man: The psychological and cultural place of farming in the Chinese psyche.

OBJECTIVE: This study attempts to illustrate the process of reconstructing adaptive self-identity by tracking the development of imagery in Mr. Z's dreams and sandtrays. METHOD: The authors adopted amplification and Narrative Identity Process Analysis methods, and developed an Imagery NPCS tool to analyze the farming images in therapy sessions. RESULTS: It provided insights into Chinese culture from an applied, non-Western lens on identity theory. The subject of the study was a Chinese man who had lost his social identity due to stressful events, the results of which were reflected in the interplay between his personal narrative related to farming images and their cultural narrative framework. CONCLUSIONS: The authors propose a practical mode of developing narrative identity based on the dynamic organizing principle of opposites which are united in a persona-shadow personality system. Development of an integrated narrative identity can be facilitated by the dialectic between the cultural narrative offered by the psychotherapist and the client's personal narrative.

Does COVID-19 impact the frequency of threatening events in dreams? An exploration of pandemic dreaming in light of contemporary dream theories.

Ninety-one dreams collected during the Covid-19 pandemic (the epidemic-situation sample) were compared with ninety-one dreams collected before the start of the epidemic (the non-epidemic-situation sample). The dreams were classified according to their content, using methods based on previous studies. The frequency of themes was compared to predictions that would be anticipated by three contemporary theories of dreaming: 1) threat simulation theory (TST); 2) incorporation continuity hypothesis (ICH); and 3) social simulation theory (SST). The epidemic-situation sample dreamed more of threatening events than the non-epidemic-situation sample (supporting the TST) and more of non-aggression threatening events, possibly due to the hyperassociation during sleep. However, the epidemic-situation sample did not show a greater prevalence of illness events in dreams (not supporting the ICH). Additionally, there was no significant difference in social neutral and positive events in dreams between the two samples as would have been predicted by the SST.