ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with a special focus on identity and identity (re)construction in adults with acquired brain injury (ABI) and families up to five years post-injury. It highlights how being diagnosed with ABI impacts identity (re)construction after ABI in both adults with ABI and their close relatives. The book explores three perspectives – these are an insider perspective from ABI survivors; an insider perspective from relatives; and an outside perspective from researchers – in order to illustrate how identities are negotiated, and constructed in concrete situations. It describes key patterns of identity construction found in the research. It unfolds reconstructions of identity through self-narratives by appeal to methods of discourse analysis, drawing especially on the concept of positioning, and placing particular focus on changes and developmental processes in these self-narratives.