ABSTRACT
Narratives from acquired brain injury (ABI) survivors and relatives exemplify how a medical gaze comes to prevail, and how difficult it can be to make sense of emotional distress when diagnostic language dominates. Narrative analysis can be a potentially powerful approach in its ability to capture transitions within identity and co-creation of positions for ABI survivors and their close relatives. Social reality is constructed through shared talks and in rehabilitation two types are possible: that of the professional, and that of the adults with ABI. For instance, for professionals, the physical recovery following ABI can be seen as the focus of intervention, whereas research has found that, although the clients themselves see physical improvement as important, the focus for them was their return to a pre-ABI life. In the knowledge regime in neurorehabilitation there are certain accessible discourses, however these discourses mainly draw on a medical understanding of ABI.
