Special thematic issue of Medical Humanities: constructions of self in health and illness

In his new book, Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life, Jerome Bruner claims that the “self is a perpetually rewritten story”. We are all constantly engaged in “self making narrative”, in the end becoming “the autobiographical narratives by which we ‘tell about’ our lives”.1

Galen Strawson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, reviewing the book for The Guardian newspaper takes a very different line. Strawson says:

“Every conscious recall brings an alteration, and the implication is plain: the more you recall, retell, narrate yourself, the further you risk moving away from accurate self understanding, from the truth of your being. Sartre is wrong to say that storying oneself is a universal …