Narrative identity
Autobiographical memory

The opportunity to tell stories about their lives can help autobiographical narrators establish a coherent sense of who they are. Charlotte Linde's definition of personal experience narrative is quintessential to the idea of narrative identity and is evidence into how these stories and the process of telling them craft the framework for one's own identity. Personal narrative is a powerful tool for creating, negotiating and displaying the moral standing of the self. The self has to be related to something, in this case an audience, but must also be related properly. Personal experience narrative culminates the discontinuity between inner experience and the portrayed self. The often hidden purpose of narratives as a social process is to show that the narrator knows what the norms are and agree with them, or depending on the audience, disagree with them. The very act of narrating creates the occasion for self-regard and editing. "The nature of the process of narration contributes to the creation of this reflexivity, because one can never immediately speak the present in the present. This necessarily creates a distinction between the narrator and the protagonist of the narrative, and interposes a distance between them. Consequently, the narrator can observe, reflect, adjust the amount of distance, and correct the self that is being created." Thus, temporal continuity- or identity of the self through time- is the most basic form of coherence we can create.
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