CV

Research Interests:
Social Psychology, mental health, narrative, identity, culture, qualitative methods

Teaching Experience:
Introduction to Sociology; Sociology of the Family; Sociology of Education; Individual and Society; Women, Culture, and Society; Contemporary Sociological Theory (T.A.); Social Research Methods (T.A.); Expository Writing; College Research and Writing

Publication:
Howard, Jenna. 2006. "Expecting and Accepting: The Temporal Ambiguity of Recovery Identities." Social Psychology Quarterly 69(4):307-324.

Dissertation:
"Recovering from Recovery: The Cognitive and Temporal Organization of Disidentification"

My dissertation, "Recovering from Recovery: The Cognitive and Temporal Organization of Disidentification,? is a qualitative analysis of the narratives of 40 individuals who formerly identified with emotional disorder labels. By focusing on people who have discarded disorder identities (i.e., de-labelers), this research brings attention to a socially unmarked population that has been largely overlooked in sociological analyses; more generally, it counters a disciplinary bias, which favors analyses of identity acquisition and negotiation over processes of disidentification. My analysis highlights the changes in individuals? orientations toward their autobiographical pasts and futures as the meanings of their disorder identities change over the course of the identity career. Based on the cognitive and temporal patterns I observe in these narratives, I argue that the social- psychological process of identifying with a disorder label tends to, over time, create a self-perpetuating dynamic that increases the salience of the disorder identity by narrowing the complexity of one?s self-concept and discouraging an orientation toward change (i.e., recovery). That is, as individuals construct autobiographical narratives around the disorder label, their understandings of their current experiences, interpretations of the past, and expectations for the future increasingly reinforce an essentialized understanding of themselves as fundamentally ?disordered.? I refer to this process as the identity whirlpool, using the imagery to elaborate the entrapping and funneling vortex that long-term disorder identification can become. Whereas short-term disorder identitification can be helpful for constructing cognitive order and autobiographical coherence, de-labelers? narratives suggest that the very same disorder identity can have debilitating consequences in the long term, as it tends undermine the very goal of recovery. While every de-labeler, by definition, eventually disidentifies with the disorder label, this process of recovering from recovery is typically described as a lengthy and difficult process. My analysis of this identity exit highlights, on the one hand, the complex interrelation between existential obstacles, interactional obstacles, and cultural obstacles to disidentification. On the other hand, the strategies that individuals develop to overcome this matrix of obstacles suggests the potential for creativity and agency in identity processes.