Sools Anneke M, Tromp Thijs, Mooren Jan H
University of Twente, The Netherlands
Relief (Dutch Christian Association of Care Providers), The Netherlands.
J Health Psychol. 2015 Mar;20(3):350-64. doi: 10.1177/1359105314566607.
This article uses Letters from the Future (a health promotion instrument) to explore the human capacity of imagining the future. From a narrative perspective, letters from the future are considered to be indicative of a variety of forms through which human beings construct and understand their future selves and worlds. This is consistent with an interpretive approach to understanding the human mind, which offers an alternative for the current dominant causal-explanatory approach in psychology. On the basis of qualitative analysis of 480 letters from the future, collected online from a diverse group of Dutch and German persons, we first identified five narrative processes operating in the letters: imagining, evaluating, orienting, expressing emotions and engaging in dialogue. Second, using comparative analysis, we identified six types of how these processes are organized in the letters as a whole. These types differ regarding functionality (which of the five processes was dominant); temporality (prospective, retrospective and present-oriented); the extent to which a path between present and future was described; and the vividness of the imagination. We suggest that these types can be used in narrative health practice as 'pathways' to locate where letter writers are on their path to imagine the future, rather than as a normative taxonomy. Future research should focus on how these pathways can be used to navigate to health and well-being.
本文运用《来自未来的信》（一种健康促进工具）来探究人类想象未来的能力。从叙事角度来看，来自未来的信被认为是人类构建和理解其未来自我与世界的多种形式的体现。这与理解人类思维的一种解释性方法相一致，该方法为当前心理学中占主导地位的因果解释方法提供了一种替代方案。基于从荷兰和德国不同人群中在线收集的480封来自未来的信进行定性分析，我们首先确定了信中运作的五个叙事过程：想象、评估、定位、表达情感和进行对话。其次，通过比较分析，我们确定了这些过程在整封信中组织方式的六种类型。这些类型在功能（五个过程中哪个占主导）、时间性（前瞻性、回顾性和以当下为导向）、描述当下与未来之间路径的程度以及想象的生动程度方面存在差异。我们建议这些类型可在叙事健康实践中用作“路径”，以确定写信者在想象未来的道路上所处的位置，而不是用作规范性分类法。未来的研究应关注如何利用这些路径通向健康和幸福。
