United Wisdom

← All guides

I03 · Article guide

The Story I Tell About Myself

Andrey Zarinsh & Maria Evilkut

The article asks how a story about oneself selects and connects events and how its generalisations can be tested without destroying the meaning of the story itself: one’s own and other people’s testimony, explanations after the fact, coherence and well-being, nostalgia and the sense of self-continuity, overgeneral memories, the co-authors of the story, the measure of what writing gives, coming to oneself, and the line between reinterpretation and embellishment. It draws on Augustine, Montaigne, Socrates, Confucius, the Qur’an, the Gospel of Luke and The Questions of King Milinda, each in its own context, and on research into narrative identity, memory and writing about oneself; the proposed way of testing generalisations is the authors’ own argument, not a proven technique.

Questions explored

How can I test a generalisation in my story about myself without destroying its meaning?

The article suggests stepping down from a generalisation such as “I give up on everything halfway” to the episodes: when it was, where, what I did, what I felt; finding episodes that do not fit the generalisation; noting against each one whether I remember it myself or know it from others; and rewording the generalisation so that it answers to the episodes. After such a check the generalisation may not disappear but become more precise: the meaning of the story remains, and the verdict may become a description. The support is indirect: studies of memory (general and specific levels differ, and the search can stop at the general one), the experiment by Hall and colleagues (a confident explanation is not yet a cause) and the old tradition of examining oneself (Socrates in the Apology). This is the authors’ own argument, not a technique that anyone has tested in a study: the article’s sources include no study that tests such a check directly, and it is a suggestion for reflection, not a technique with a guaranteed result, and not treatment.

What does a story about oneself do with the events of a life?

It selects and connects them: of thousands of lived episodes only a few get in, and links are drawn between them. Researchers of narrative identity (Vanderveren and colleagues, 2021) write that people construct and internalise an evolving life story composed of significant autobiographical memories; that these memories have been selected is the reading of the article’s authors. A clear example of selection is Confucius’s six sentences on his path from fifteen to seventy (Analects, Book II, ch. 4), with not a word about family, office or loss. Augustine (Confessions, Book X) describes how future actions, events and hopes are inferred from the store of memory; according to the article, this is exactly where a generalisation enters the story. This is the article’s authors’ interpretation of a definition and of traditional texts, not a measurement of how any particular person selects events.

Is a story about oneself made only of what I remember myself?

Not only: it is made both of what a person has lived through and of what they know from others. In Book X of the Confessions Augustine says that all he remembers he holds either from his own experience or on other’s credit. The systematic review by Brewin and Andrews (2017) examines experiments in which adults were led to believe in false childhood events: in implantation studies some recollective experience is induced on average in 47% of participants, but only in 15% are these experiences likely to be rated as full memories; the authors conclude that susceptibility to false memories of childhood events appears more limited than has been suggested. Memory is not a video recording, but it is not invention either. These are laboratory suggestion studies: in their general discussion the authors treat the share of about 15% as rather an upper bound, and they warn that researchers’ ratings do not necessarily match what participants report.

Can I trust my own explanation of “why I am like this”?

Not unconditionally: explanations in a self-story can be convincing and still be built after the fact. In the experiment by Hall, Johansson and Strandberg (2012), 160 volunteers aged 17 to 69 filled in a survey on moral questions in a park, and by means of a magic trick two of their ratings were secretly reversed. The majority of the reversals remained undetected, 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes, and participants often constructed coherent arguments supporting the opposite of their original position. The experiment dealt with opinions on public questions, not with events in anyone’s biography, there were two reversals per person, it was run in one country and built on an illusion: it does not prove that our explanations of ourselves are false, but shows that the coherence and confidence of an explanation do not mean that this was the cause at work.

Does a coherent life story make a person better off?

In the study the article relies on, this was not borne out. Vanderveren and colleagues (2021) surveyed 333 young Belgians aged 18 to 30: the coherence of a turning-point narrative was not significantly related to psychological well-being; of the identity measures, it was weakly associated only with less disturbed identity functioning, and showed no significant association with a consolidated sense of identity or with lack of identity. Coherence is a property of the story, not of its truth or its kindness. This is an association, not a cause: the study is cross-sectional, it covers one country and one age group, coherence was rated on a single memory, and the authors themselves call the associations they found rather weak.

Is a story about oneself linked with the feeling of remaining oneself?

In research, it is linked. Hong, Sedikides and Wildschut (2022) ran five studies (254, 250, 250, 174 and 146 participants; samples in the United States, Korea and the United Kingdom) on nostalgia and the sense of self-continuity, a connection between one’s past, present and future selves. Nostalgia predicted this sense in the correlational studies and, in the authors’ conclusion, increased it in the two experiments; in the first of them the difference from the control group did not reach the 0.05 significance level (p = 0.056). The link ran consistently through narrative, only sporadically through associative links with the past, and never through a belief that the self does not change. In these studies narrative was measured rather than manipulated, so its role as the main mediator is consistent with the idea that a story supports the feeling of being the same person, but does not prove it; continuity and its bases were rated with single items, and the findings speak of a feeling, not of how accurate the story is.

What is known about overgeneral memories such as “it’s always like this with me”?

Researchers of autobiographical memory distinguish specific memories, of a single event lasting no longer than a day, from non-specific ones, of repeated events or long periods; likening the generalisation “I always give up” to the second kind is the article’s own step. In the meta-analysis by Hallford and colleagues (2022; 17 studies), people whose depression was in remission recalled fewer specific memories (k = 15; g = −0.31) and more general ones (k = 9; g = 0.25) than people who had never been depressed; the effects are small to moderate, the results of individual studies diverge considerably, and the authors put forward the role of this feature of memory as a risk factor for future episodes as a hypothesis. A small study by Haque and colleagues (2014; thirteen people with depression and thirteen without) illustrates that the search for a memory can stop at the level of a general event. It does not follow from these studies that someone who speaks in generalisations is ill, or that “remembering specifically” is a treatment; improving memory specificity is a clinical question for specialists, not advice for working on one’s own.

Who else takes part in my story about myself?

Family, surroundings and culture: their voices can be heard in a self-story. In an opinion article, Majse Lind (2023) writes that identity is not solo-authored but a co-authored process; following Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystem model, she lists the levels of influence, from stories of a person’s inner circle to overarching cultural, political and religious “master narratives” and historical time. In The Questions of King Milinda the monk Nāgasena calls a name such as the one given by one’s parents a generally understood term, a designation in common use; in the parable of the prodigal son, on the reading of the article’s authors, the son’s story about himself meets another story, the father’s. Lind’s article is a theoretical position without new data, written in the context of personality disorders, and the article does not enter the Buddhist debate about there being no permanent individuality.

Does it help to write my story down?

A little, judging by studies of expressive writing, that is, writing about difficult events. A meta-analysis of 29 Korean studies (Lee, Kim and Lim, 2023) found an overall effect of g = 0.33, and 0.16 after correction for publication bias, that is, a small one; the authors compare this estimate with a Western meta-analysis in which it was 0.15. The effect was larger for structured than for free writing, with more sessions, with sessions longer than 15 minutes and at a delayed follow-up. Montaigne adds testimony about himself: in his experience, writing acts on the writer too, but this is one author’s testimony, not a law. All the studies were carried out in one country, most relied on self-report, expressive writing is not necessarily the story of one’s whole life, and with severe trauma or disorders such writing may not help; so writing one’s story down is probably worth doing, but one should not expect it to change one’s fate.

What does “coming to oneself” mean in the parable of the prodigal son?

In Luke’s parable (15:17) the younger son, who has wasted his share in a far country and is starving, comes to himself: he compares his position with that of the hired servants in his father’s house, names it plainly, “I perish with hunger”, and straight afterwards resolves to go to his father. On the article’s reading, it was not the facts that changed but the story, and the decision followed an accurate retelling that admits unpleasant facts rather than going around them. This is the article’s authors’ reading: in the Gospel context the parable speaks of repentance and of the father’s mercy, not of a technique of self-description.

Where is the line between reinterpreting oneself and embellishing?

The article proposes its own working criterion: a retelling that names unpleasant facts is closer to reinterpretation; a retelling that serves to avoid them is closer to embellishment; reinterpretation changes the person and stays answerable to the episodes, while embellishment changes only the picture. Montaigne’s sentence that, painting himself for others, he represents himself in a better colouring can be read two ways; on the reading of the article’s authors, the context of the paragraph is closer to the idea that the portrait changed the original, but Cotton’s translation does not settle it. Sura 75 of the Qur’an says that a man shall be the eye witness against himself even if he puts forth his plea. The criterion is the authors’ own, the line, as the article says, is a fine one, and the Qur’an’s words are about judgement and responsibility before God, not psychological advice.

Does all this mean that every story about oneself is fiction?

No. Brewin and Andrews’s review concludes that susceptibility to false childhood memories appears more limited than had been suggested, and the experiment by Hall and colleagues concerns opinions on a survey, not the events of a life. A self-story is not a court record, but it is not fiction either: its material is episodes that can be recalled and checked. The limit of the conclusion: among the sources the article relies on, there are no long-term studies of which themes in a life story are linked to well-being years later, so the article makes no claim about which stories “make life better” in the long run.

When is working with one’s story not an exercise to do alone?

If a dark generalisation about yourself will not let go and gets in the way of living, this is no longer an exercise to do on your own: it is sensible to see a doctor or a psychologist. If thoughts of harming yourself appear, seek help at once; in immediate danger, contact the emergency services in your country. This is the authors’ general caveat without a separate source: the article is no substitute for professional help, and its practical questions are a suggestion for reflection, not treatment.

Key distinctions

The article suggests stepping down from a generalisation such as “I give up on everything halfway” to the episodes: when it was, where, what I did, what I felt; finding episodes that do not fit the generalisation; noting against each one whether I remember it myself or know it from others; and rewording the generalisation so that it answers to the episodes. After such a check the generalisation may not disappear but become more precise: the meaning of the story remains, and the verdict may become a description. The support is indirect: studies of memory (general and specific levels differ, and the search can stop at the general one), the experiment by Hall and colleagues (a confident explanation is not yet a cause) and the old tradition of examining oneself (Socrates in the Apology). This is the authors’ own argument, not a technique that anyone has tested in a study: the article’s sources include no study that tests such a check directly, and it is a suggestion for reflection, not a technique with a guaranteed result, and not treatment.

Not unconditionally: explanations in a self-story can be convincing and still be built after the fact. In the experiment by Hall, Johansson and Strandberg (2012), 160 volunteers aged 17 to 69 filled in a survey on moral questions in a park, and by means of a magic trick two of their ratings were secretly reversed. The majority of the reversals remained undetected, 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes, and participants often constructed coherent arguments supporting the opposite of their original position. The experiment dealt with opinions on public questions, not with events in anyone’s biography, there were two reversals per person, it was run in one country and built on an illusion: it does not prove that our explanations of ourselves are false, but shows that the coherence and confidence of an explanation do not mean that this was the cause at work.

In the study the article relies on, this was not borne out. Vanderveren and colleagues (2021) surveyed 333 young Belgians aged 18 to 30: the coherence of a turning-point narrative was not significantly related to psychological well-being; of the identity measures, it was weakly associated only with less disturbed identity functioning, and showed no significant association with a consolidated sense of identity or with lack of identity. Coherence is a property of the story, not of its truth or its kindness. This is an association, not a cause: the study is cross-sectional, it covers one country and one age group, coherence was rated on a single memory, and the authors themselves call the associations they found rather weak.

In research, it is linked. Hong, Sedikides and Wildschut (2022) ran five studies (254, 250, 250, 174 and 146 participants; samples in the United States, Korea and the United Kingdom) on nostalgia and the sense of self-continuity, a connection between one’s past, present and future selves. Nostalgia predicted this sense in the correlational studies and, in the authors’ conclusion, increased it in the two experiments; in the first of them the difference from the control group did not reach the 0.05 significance level (p = 0.056). The link ran consistently through narrative, only sporadically through associative links with the past, and never through a belief that the self does not change. In these studies narrative was measured rather than manipulated, so its role as the main mediator is consistent with the idea that a story supports the feeling of being the same person, but does not prove it; continuity and its bases were rated with single items, and the findings speak of a feeling, not of how accurate the story is.

Researchers of autobiographical memory distinguish specific memories, of a single event lasting no longer than a day, from non-specific ones, of repeated events or long periods; likening the generalisation “I always give up” to the second kind is the article’s own step. In the meta-analysis by Hallford and colleagues (2022; 17 studies), people whose depression was in remission recalled fewer specific memories (k = 15; g = −0.31) and more general ones (k = 9; g = 0.25) than people who had never been depressed; the effects are small to moderate, the results of individual studies diverge considerably, and the authors put forward the role of this feature of memory as a risk factor for future episodes as a hypothesis. A small study by Haque and colleagues (2014; thirteen people with depression and thirteen without) illustrates that the search for a memory can stop at the level of a general event. It does not follow from these studies that someone who speaks in generalisations is ill, or that “remembering specifically” is a treatment; improving memory specificity is a clinical question for specialists, not advice for working on one’s own.

A little, judging by studies of expressive writing, that is, writing about difficult events. A meta-analysis of 29 Korean studies (Lee, Kim and Lim, 2023) found an overall effect of g = 0.33, and 0.16 after correction for publication bias, that is, a small one; the authors compare this estimate with a Western meta-analysis in which it was 0.15. The effect was larger for structured than for free writing, with more sessions, with sessions longer than 15 minutes and at a delayed follow-up. Montaigne adds testimony about himself: in his experience, writing acts on the writer too, but this is one author’s testimony, not a law. All the studies were carried out in one country, most relied on self-report, expressive writing is not necessarily the story of one’s whole life, and with severe trauma or disorders such writing may not help; so writing one’s story down is probably worth doing, but one should not expect it to change one’s fate.

No. Brewin and Andrews’s review concludes that susceptibility to false childhood memories appears more limited than had been suggested, and the experiment by Hall and colleagues concerns opinions on a survey, not the events of a life. A self-story is not a court record, but it is not fiction either: its material is episodes that can be recalled and checked. The limit of the conclusion: among the sources the article relies on, there are no long-term studies of which themes in a life story are linked to well-being years later, so the article makes no claim about which stories “make life better” in the long run.

If a dark generalisation about yourself will not let go and gets in the way of living, this is no longer an exercise to do on your own: it is sensible to see a doctor or a psychologist. If thoughts of harming yourself appear, seek help at once; in immediate danger, contact the emergency services in your country. This is the authors’ general caveat without a separate source: the article is no substitute for professional help, and its practical questions are a suggestion for reflection, not treatment.

Limits of interpretation

  • Source references cover only the passages cited (the reading_scope field); reading of whole corpora or full texts is not claimed.
  • The example and the practical questions are the authors’ own; they are neither research findings nor a traditional practice.
  • Testing generalisations against episodes and the criterion of reinterpretation versus embellishment are the authors’ own arguments with indirect support; the article’s sources include no study that tests such a check directly.
  • Research: a cross-sectional study (Belgium, 333 people, a single memory), five studies by Hong and colleagues (correlational studies and two experiments; in the first experiment p = 0.056 against the 0.05 level), a field experiment with a survey (Sweden), a systematic review of laboratory suggestion studies, a meta-analysis of people in remission from depression, a small study (13 + 13), a single-country meta-analysis (Korea); associations are not presented as causes, nor sample averages as rules for an individual.
  • Lind (2023) is an opinion article without new data, written in the context of personality disorders.
  • In Vanderveren and colleagues’ study narrative coherence is weakly associated only with less disturbed identity functioning (not with well-being or with a consolidated sense of identity); in Hong and colleagues’ studies narrative was rated with single items and measured rather than manipulated: its role as a mediator is consistent with the idea that a story supports the sense of continuity, but does not prove it.
  • Religious and philosophical texts (Augustine, Montaigne, Socrates, Confucius, the Qur’an, the Gospel of Luke, The Questions of King Milinda) are kept within their own contexts and were read in the translations given; the article claims no shared teaching and no historical link between the traditions; the Buddhist teaching that there is no permanent individuality is not examined.
  • The sources include no long-term studies of life-story themes and well-being; no claims about long-term outcomes are made.
  • The material makes no diagnoses and does not replace a doctor or a psychologist; improving memory specificity is a clinical question for specialists; with thoughts of self-harm, seek help at once, and in immediate danger contact the emergency services in your country.
  • Publication, library delivery and indexing were not performed in this task.

Sources