Listening in the Silence, Seeing in the Dark: Reconstructing Life after Brain Injury / Edition 1

by Ruthann Knechel Johansen

Overview

Traumatic brain injury can interrupt without warning the life story that any one of us is in the midst of creating. When the author's fifteen-year-old son survives a terrible car crash in spite of massive trauma to his brain, she and her family know only that his story has not ended. Their efforts, Erik's own efforts, and those of everyone who helps bring him from deep coma to new life make up a moving and inspiring story for us all, one that invites us to reconsider the very nature of "self" and selfhood.

Ruthann Knechel Johansen, who teaches literature and narrative theory, is a particularly eloquent witness to the silent space in which her son, confronted with life-shattering injury and surrounded by conflicting narratives about his viability, is somehow reborn. She describes the time of crisis and medical intervention as an hour-by-hour struggle to communicate with the medical world on the one hand and the everyday world of family and friends on the other. None of them knows how much, or even whether, they can communicate with the wounded child who is lost from himself and everything he knew. Through this experience of utter disintegration, Johansen comes to realize that self-identity is molded and sustained by stories.

As Erik regains movement and consciousness, his parents, younger sister, doctors, therapists, educators, and friends all contribute to a web of language and narrative that gradually enables his body, mind, and feelings to make sense of their reacquired functions. Like those who know and love him, the young man feels intense grief and anger for the loss of the self he was before the accident, yet he is the first to see continuity where they see only change. The story is breathtaking, because we become involved in the pain and suspense and faith that accompany every birth. Medical and rehabilitation professionals, social workers, psychotherapists, students of narrative, and anyone who has faced life's trauma will find hope in this meditation on selfhood: out of the shambles of profound brain injury and coma can arise fruitful lives and deepened relationships.

Keywords: narrative; selfhood; therapy; traumatic brain injury; healing; spirituality; family crisis; children

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520231146
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	03/22/2002
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ruthann Knechel Johansen is a professor and Associate Director of the Core Course in the College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame. Her most recent book is The Narrative Secret of Flannery O'Connor (1994).

Table of Contents

Introduction

Threshold One: The Impact of Vulnerability
Threshold Two: Waiting in Crisis
Threshold Three: Uncertain Deliveries
Threshold Four: Becoming Again
Threshold Five: The Scattered Self
Threshold Six: Improvisational Selves
Threshold Seven: Accepting Vulnerability
Epilogue: Crossing the Threshold

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

A teacher of literature and narrative theory at the University of Notre Dame, Johansen (The Narrative Secret of Flannery O'Connor) uses her literary skill to tell the story of her 15-year-old son Erik's recovery from traumatic brain injury after a car accident. Not knowing at first whether Erik would live or die, family members found themselves trying to understand and communicate with the medical world. Once Erik emerged from the coma, the family, with the help of medical and rehabilitation specialists, social workers, educators, and psychotherapists, sought ways to communicate with this young man, who had lost all sense of self and of everything he knew. As Erik struggled to relearn basic activities, his family and friends told him stories to help him regain his sense of self. Johansen's account of these events draws us into a world of confusion and terror and a search for understanding. The result is a deeply moving story of a struggle to selfhood and of the many contributions that make recovery from traumatic brain injury possible. Jodith Janes, Cleveland Clinic Fdn. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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