What are the most difficult psychological obstacles for patients to overcome after spinal cord injury? - Laura Tuck, PsyD

One of the things that I see of often is this idea of identity redevelopment. People conceptualize themselves prior to injury based upon all these different roles we have in our society and our families. A lot of it is based on productivity. So what happens after an injury is that there might be some sort of threat to the perception of who I am, especially in our culture of being very productive individuals. So I see people have challenges with their response to injury when they feel like their identity has changed, or that their role in their different social systems has changed. So it’s about addressing who they are, and how they integrate, who I was before, and who I am now and what this productivity look likes now—how can I still fulfill those various roles?