Storymaking and Storytelling: Making Sense of Living with Multiple Sclerosis

This paper presents one interpretive element of a qualitative study aimed at understanding the lived experience of women with multiple sclerosis. Data were gathered from 16 women by way of a focus group interview (six women) and ten semi‐structured individual interviews. Symbolic interactionism was used to build a theoretical foundation for interpreting the day‐to‐day dynamic relationship between the person, the symbolic meaning of their illness, and their occupations. Narrative quotes have been used in the text to illustrate how the raw data informed the interpretive process. People often use metaphors when it is hard to depict the subjective meaning of things in everyday words. As women in this study talked about living with multiple sclerosis, they crafted narrative images richly embroidered with metaphor. The women's engagement in the intuitive occupations of storymaking and storytelling reveals a rich use of analogies and metaphors to make meaning of and to develop occupational strategies for managing the intrusiveness of their illness in their everyday lived world.