Exploring how our identities form through personal narratives, how these stories can be manipulated in coercive relationships, and the profound disorientation that follows when our constructed self-concept collapses.

Healthy narrative identity requires agency—the sense that you can shape your own life and make meaningful choices. When that is systematically undermined, your story becomes colonized by someone else's version of who you are.
Narrative identity (McAdams) and coercive control: how identity gets constructed through life stories and relationships, how dependency structures shape that construction invisibly, and what happens when the whole thing collapses at once.


Von Columbia University Alumni in San Francisco entwickelt
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Lena: Have you ever had that feeling where your whole sense of who you are just... crumbles? Like the story you've been telling yourself about your life suddenly doesn't make sense anymore?
Blythe: Oh absolutely. Those moments can be incredibly disorienting. I remember working with someone who described it as "waking up in a life I didn't recognize." Her entire identity had been built around being the supportive partner in her relationship, and when that relationship ended, she felt like she didn't know who she was anymore.
Lena: That's exactly what we're exploring today. The way our identities are constructed through the stories we tell about ourselves, right? And how those stories can be influenced—sometimes manipulated—by our relationships.
Blythe: Yes, and what's fascinating is how invisible this process often is. Dan McAdams calls this "narrative identity"—the internalized, evolving story we create to give our lives purpose and coherence. But these stories don't develop in isolation. They're shaped by our relationships, cultural expectations, and sometimes even by people who deliberately try to control how we see ourselves.
Lena: Which is where coercive control comes in. It's not just about physical abuse or even obvious emotional abuse—it's about systematically undermining someone's sense of self.
Blythe: Exactly. And when that happens, people can lose their ability to author their own life story. Their narrative becomes colonized by someone else's version of who they are and who they should be. Let's explore how this process of identity construction works normally, and what happens when it gets hijacked by coercive relationships.