PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Previous research indicates a strong association between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychopathology. and linguistic indices, but most studies have only compared one traumatic and one neutral life event. Referring, to the Dual Representation Theory for PTSD we investigated the narrative representation of two negative life events, with and without current emotional impact in a non-clinical population. Twenty-five subjects wrote detailed narratives of the two types of life events. Lexical categories were coded and compared between the different scripts. Life events with Current emotional impact were characterised by a greater use of emotional words, especially secondary emotionally words. Proprioceptive words were more often used and there were more errors when present tense was employed. Additionally, a greater number of sentences were found in these scripts. Our data suggest that in healthy subjects a relationship exists between narrative peculiarities and the current emotional impact of autobiographical memory shaped by negative life events. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.