Drawing Life: Narratives and the Sense of Self

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.

A sociologist and clinical psychologist, Thomas J. Cottle is currently professor of education at Boston University. He is the author of more than thirty books including At Peril: Stories of Injustice, Hardest Times: The Trauma of Long-Term Unemployment, When the Music Stopped: Discovering My Mother, A Sense of Self: The Work of Affirmation, and Beyond Self-Esteem: Narratives of Self-Knowledge and Devotion.