Abstract
Friendship plays an important role in the development of identity in adolescence. Amongst young people who have experienced an acquired brain injury, friendship can be seen as a key site in the reconstruction of identity. This chapter draws on research conducted with nine young people, all of whom had experienced a life-threatening brain injury. The research employed a creative approach to data collection, namely using collage to mediate a narrative method. The chapter draws on findings from the study in relation to the interplay between friendship, interpersonal relationships with peers and the redrawing of identity amongst participants. Excerpts from collages and narratives are used to illustrate the chapter. Changes in young peoples’ social world are highlighted in the wake of a diminished social circle. How young people internalise perceived negative interactions in terms of their redrawn sense of self is described.
I am grateful to the young people and their families who took part in the research reported here. They were each generous and open in their engagement with the study in relation to sensitive memories and emotive experiences. The work was supported by a Vice Chancellor’s Research Scholarship at Ulster University, Northern Ireland.
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- 1.
This work was supported by a Vice Chancellor’s Research Scholarship at Ulster University, Northern Ireland .
- 2.
Whilst this view is perhaps embedded in present Western cultural perceptions of the teen years, there are numerous examples in cultures around the world of conceptualisations of adolescence as a time of change or ‘coming of age,’ with emotional change, alterations in social status and thus identity coinciding with the physical changes associated with puberty. Historically, within Western cultures, the idea of adolescence as a discrete phase of development has held greater prominence since perhaps the 1950s. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to explore these ideas further, except to say that the concept of adolescence is one which is variously recognised as a time of transition, but as a defined developmental stage, it is a relatively recent construction.
- 3.
In five of the nine families, the mother was a single parent and their son/daughter resided with them. In the remaining four families, the mothers were not employed outside the family home and some had ceased employment following their child’s injury. Mothers made themselves available for participation in the study, and fathers were not present in the home when data collection was taking place.
- 4.
Unique identifier code—M/F to indicate gender and age in numbers; P-RTA—pedestrian in a road traffic accident; Pa-RTA—car passenger in a road traffic accident; fall—fall resulting in head injury and CA—cycling accident.
- 5.
‘It’s just all fell’ is colloquialism, meaning that friendships altered/ended.
- 6.
Irish colloquialism for ‘fun’/’enjoyment.’
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Dowling, S., McConkey, R., Sinclair, M. (2018). My Friends and Me: Friendship and Identity Following Acquired Brain Injury in Young People. In: Runswick-Cole, K., Curran, T., Liddiard, K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54446-9_14
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