Retrospective Narrative Reindexing: A Three-Phase Model of Autobiographical Reorganisation Following Late Autism Diagnosis in Twice-Exceptional Adults

The psychological consequences of late autism diagnosis in adulthood have been studied mainly for their short-term effects (relief, grief, identity disruption, renegotiation of self-concept). The longer process through which twice-exceptional (2e) autistic adults reorganise autobiographical memory after diagnosis has not, to our knowledge, been given a formally specified phase model in the peer-reviewed literature. This paper proposes Retrospective Narrative Reindexing (RNR), a psychological construct designating the reassignment of autobiographical events from their original categorical indices to neuropsychologically grounded categories that alter the causal architecture of the self-narrative. Drawing on the psychoanalytic theory of deferred reorganisation, narrative identity research, and systematic autoethnographic evidence from a late-diagnosed 2e adult, we propose a three-phase temporal model, derived from a single case and requiring external empirical validation before clinical generalisation: (1) Massive Recoding, the rapid, extensive reassignment of biographical events to neuropsychological categories with reduced negative self-attribution; (2) Causal Chain Revision, the restructuring of the narrative's explanatory architecture, modifying attributions of agency and responsibility; and (3) Identity Consolidation, the gradual integration of diagnosis as a structural element of identity rather than an external addendum. High metacognitive capacity is argued to shape this phenomenology in 2e adults: the same resources that accelerate Phases 1 and 2 can generate a recursive analytic loop delaying Phase 3. A supplementary trajectory dimension addresses three disrupted trajectories of the process. Clinical implications are discussed, focused on phase-specific features of session material identifiable without independent access to the patient's internal experience of the process.