CASE STUDY One woman’s story about her everyday life after a spinal cord injury GUNILLA ISAKSSON & MARIA PRELLWITZ Department of Health Sciences, Health and Rehabilitation, Lulea ˚ University of Technology, Lulea ˚, Sweden Accepted November 2009 Abstract Purpose. The aim was to describe and offer an explanation for how one woman viewed her everyday life after a spinal cord injury (SCI). Method. Data were collected by conducting three interviews with one woman with a SCI. Open-ended questions were used with the intention of capturing the woman’s own story. The narrative approach inspired by Polkinghorne was used to describe the woman’s experiences of her everyday life after the SCI. Results. The analysis revealed that, events influenced her everyday life after a SCI and these events influenced her identity, habits and participation in activities. Further, how she has gone from a state of hopelessness in the early days to a reconstructed identity, associated with a new insight during the 2 years after the accident through a complex and dynamic process of change. In our interpretation we have attempted to provide an explanation of why this outcome came about. Conclusions. When using narratives, professionals within health-care could focus on the individual instead of the diagnosis or disability. Further, according to a client-centred perspective it is important to attain the client’s experiences and knowledge to gain a more complete picture in order to obtain a profound understanding of the client. Keywords: Narrative, spinal cord injury, woman Introduction As professionals within health-care, how can we better understand the experiences of those living with a disability? We suggest that one way is listening to our client’s narratives of their life, and through their accounts, gain an understanding of how they view their everyday life. Our initial question is grounded in earlier studies that have criticised professionals within health-care for defining the needs of persons with disabilities without taking into account their sub- jective experiences [1–3]. We agree with this critique, and in accordance with a client-centred perspective, we have found it important to attain the client’s ex- periences and knowledge to obtain a more complete picture, and thereby a more profound understanding of the experience the client has gone through. The attitude of professionals within health-care can be understood in relation to the traditional approach during the 20th century, namely; that a disability is a personal tragedy for the person when the individual concerned had to depend on others for support [1]. An increasing criticism has been raised against this approach, and, as a result, a social approach to disability was developed. In this approach, disability is described as all the things in society that impose restrictions on persons with disabilities [4] and thus the concept encompasses a multitude of aspects. In accordance with this debate, the World Health Organisation (WHO) changed their international classification of impairment, dis- abilities and handicap from a model that situated the problems of disability in the individual, to a model that asserts the interaction of individual, biological and psychological traits with the social and physical environment [5]. However, this new classification has been criticised for the objectivity of the perspec- tive adopted, particularly in relation to the individual Correspondence: Gunilla Isaksson, PhD, Department of Health Sciences, Health and Rehabilitation, Lulea ˚ University of Technology, Lulea ˚, 97187 Sweden. E-mail: gunilla.isaksson@ltu.se Disability and Rehabilitation, 2010; 32(16): 1376–1386 ISSN 0963-8288 print/ISSN 1464-5165 online ª 2010 Informa UK Ltd. DOI: 10.3109/09638280903514762 Disabil Rehabil Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Skeribi on 06/13/10 For personal use only.