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Stories and Silences: Disclosures and Self in Chronic Illness

Sonoma State University

The renewed attention to research participants' stories and researchers' ways of telling them has advanced our thinking about narratives but neglected the significance of silences. This article addresses the stories and silences of chronically ill people in relation to their self-disclosures. Studying their stories and silences (a) corrects an over reliance on participants' stories, (b) notes disparities between lived experience and accounts of it, (c) brings the body into analytic purview, and (d) addresses the researcher's stance and actions. Four often liminal concerns underlie these research participants' stories and silences: the place of suffering, the potential of dislocation and isolation, the possibility of losing moral status, and potential loss of self and a way of life. These concerns contribute to participants' rhetoric of self and are implicit in social scientific treatment of illness stories. The article ends by arguing that ethical dilemmas in interacting with participants and rendering their stories may take a different form than currently supposed.

Key Words: silence • stories • self-disclosures • self • chronic illness

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