Tragedy and Redemption: A Feasibility and Acceptability Study of an Existential Narrative Therapy for Adults Following Marital Separation

Abstract

Although most adults cope well with marital separation and divorce, some report significant difficulties navigating this life transition. The end of marriage can severely disrupt one’s self-narrative and self-concept, resulting in loss of meaning and, consequently, significant emotional upheaval. To address these risk profiles, the present study developed an existential narrative therapy for adults struggling with marital separation by incorporating tragic and redemptive narratives into the therapeutic process. Nine out of eleven participants completed six 1-hour psychotherapy sessions over a three-month period either in-person or online via Zoom. The first four sessions occurred weekly and entailed learning about tragic and redemptive concepts and writing marital separation narratives with tragic and redemptive themes. The final two sessions occurred monthly and assisted with narrative implementation. In line with the NIH Stage Model (Stage I research), I conducted a feasibility and acceptability study of this intervention and outline a series of treatment implications learned over the 60 psychotherapy sessions. To assess feasibility, I measured recruitment rates, session and homework completion rates, and participant understanding of therapy content. To assess acceptability, I evaluated the degree to which participants found the intervention useful, satisfying, and recommendable to others. Secondary goals included obtaining descriptive evidence of treatment efficacy, measuring psychological constructs and linguistic markers of treatment, and eliciting feedback to improve the intervention. The intervention was feasible to administer, acceptable to participants, and provided preliminary evidence of treatment efficacy via several potential mechanisms of change. Future studies should aim to improve recruitment and screening methods, increase the structure and scalability of the intervention, and test the efficacy of the intervention and variations of it.