Drawing Life

Cottle examines the ways people interpret their life experiences and construct meanings for the events they have encountered. In reading the sixteen life studies in Drawing Life, we encounter both inner reflections as well the power of culture to shape the meanings people give to the events that befall them.

Thomas J. Cottle

CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments I. STORIES OF ADULTS On Narratives and the Sense of Self The Abandoner Do You See Me as a Human Being or Just Another Black Face? No Way to Look But Back Jacob and Millie Portman A Woman Named Sarah Clark Keller Marcus Nathaniel Simpson: If the Lord Has Patience, I've Got a Future Professors II. STORIES OF CHILDREN Adolescent as Story Teller: The Case of Anorexia Nervosa The Young and their Prophets They Got Anger Pushing 'Em in One Direction, Fright Pushing 'Em in Another The Evils of Testing and Tracking The Bedroom of Sheila Cooperton A Child to be Envied Mind Shadows Just a Memory III. EPILOGUE The Value of Stories: Applications for Research and Healing Bibliography