ABSTRACT
Largely because they are so often forced to live in exile from the kinds of valued roles that alone among our participants Anne now occupies, perhaps one of the most difficult problems for people with a history of severe mental illness in our society is to sustain a sense of value. One way to attempt to combat the menace of devaluation is through the giving of accounts that aim to redress the ‘official’ view of the person’s history as the story of a wasted life. So, for example, Steve endeavours to furbish a narrative of his life that highlights his accomplishments as a painter and decorator who until very recently always managed through years of illness to get back into work after he came out of hospital. Though he still does a number of odd jobs on the side, he now feels his age and assesses that with his injections he could no longer manage a full-time job but in the past
You see, I were always good at climbing, I could get up a sixty-foot ladder, that’s why I always kept me job.
