Person-Centered Narrative Analysis

The concept of narrative has assumed considerable prominence in psychology in the 21st century, signaling a shift away from mechanistic paradigms of the prior century toward approaches that center meaning making in context. This article reviews the development of one approach within the larger umbrella of narrative psychology, which we term person-centered narrative analysis (PCNA). Anchored in a constructionist epistemology, PCNA maintains its analytic focus on the whole person through the entirety of the research process. In contrast to most other qualitative approaches that examine patterns across individuals and report findings at aggregate levels of pattern (e.g., ethnography), category (e.g., grounded theory), or theme (e.g., reflexive thematic analysis), PCNA focuses on patterns within individual cases. This analytic approach also contrasts with other forms of narrative analysis that either quantify narrative data and/or report findings at the level of story type (e.g., master narrative analysis) or themes across stories, rather than at the level of the person. The article reviews methodological practices and procedures of PCNA, including such features as flexible-protocol interviewing, social–ecological hermeneutics, and iterative readings of interview transcripts that blend induction and deduction, attending to form, plot, theme, voice, and reflexivity. The article concludes by situating PCNA within the qualitative revolution in psychology, which seeks to restore a focus on individual meaning making in context and resist variable-centered methods that obscure agency and personhood in the study of lives.