Living with diagnoses: an interactionist analysis of a young person’s experience of ADHD and Asperger’s syndrome

Abstract

Social work with young people in societal care is seldom organized and built upon knowledge that is embedded in their life experiences and interpretations of their life situations. Research has shown that few studies have an explicit interest in their life-worlds. Not many studies take their voices and perspectives as a starting point of departure, omitting processes of subjective meaning making, as well as missing out on experience-grounded knowledge about the existential conflicts that young people have to deal with when placed in care. This article examines identity-construction from a life story perspective. In the focus of the analysis is 17-year-old Veronica and her life story. The analysis illuminates the interplay between neuropsychiatric diagnoses and self-understanding. More specifically, the analysis focuses on the role that the diagnoses of ADHD and Asperger’s play in the process of coming to terms with one’s personal identity.

Keywords:

• Young people
• diagnoses
• life stories
• identity construction
• societal care