Therapy discharge becomes part of the life story

Despite great strides in the life-participation approach to aphasia therapy and the arduous work of several therapists to include patients in the decision-making and goal-setting process of therapy, the patient's direct perspective on the experience of treatment is seldom portrayed in academic journals. In the current article, the voices and different agendas of a stroke survivor with aphasia, her speech-language therapists, and an aspiring qualitative researcher are discussed by means of intertwined narratives, dialogues, and discourses. During an in-depth interview process, the researcher hears the effects of a discharge report on the perceptions and life course of a person living with aphasia. The researcher explores her own reactions and thoughts about the discharge process and report writing. The narratives in this article illustrate the potentially serious impact of seemingly routine clinical procedures, such as a discharge report.