Re-membering and
disability community.
Who belongs in my “club of life”, and whose voices should count?
How narrative therapy’s re-membering conversations can include disabled peers, people who help, and those no longer here, and why community matters for stories of disability.
What this is: a guide to re-membering conversations through a disability lens.
Why it matters: many disabled people have had their stories told by professionals, while the voices that would affirm them are absent.
The sharpest reframe: you can give some people more membership in your life, and others less.
One thing to take away: ask who would see you differently from the problem story.
The short version
Re-membering conversations treat a person’s life as a “club” with members whose voices shape their identity. People can choose to give some members more say, and others less. For disabled people, this can mean upgrading the voices of disabled friends, elders, online communities, a trusted assistant, or a grandparent who saw them clearly, and downgrading the voices of professionals or relatives who only saw deficit. It honours interdependence, and it can connect people to disability community and culture.
You might recognise this
Illustrative statementsDrawn together from common experiences. They are not quotes from individual people.
What re-membering is
Established practiceMichael White drew on the anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff to describe identity as shaped by an association of people, a “club of life”. Re-membering conversations ask who has membership in that club, what they would say about the person, and what the person has contributed to them. Members can be living or dead, present or distant, even people known only through books or stories.
Who might belong
Our framework- Disabled friends, mentors and elders.
- Online disability communities.
- Disability activists and writers whose words matter to the person.
- A personal assistant or carer who knows them well, if they want that.
- A grandparent, teacher or friend who saw them clearly.
- People they have helped, taught or cared for.
Re-membering also asks the other way round: what has the person contributed to these lives? Disabled people are often seen only as receivers of care. Their contributions deserve recognition too. But contribution is not an eligibility test for belonging: people belong in each other’s lives without having to give back in equal measure.
Aisling is 22, uses a wheelchair, and grew up the only disabled child in her school. She remembers a physiotherapist who called her “a lot of work”. In re-membering conversations she chooses to give that voice less membership, and more to two disabled women she met through an online forum, and to her late grandfather, who used to race her down the hill in her chair. Asked what her grandfather would say about her now, she laughs: “That I’m too fast.”
Aisling is an illustrative composite, not a real person.
Questions that can help:
- Who knows you beyond your diagnosis?
- Who takes your preferences seriously?
- Who remembers your humour or curiosity?
- Whose judgement has become louder than it deserves?
- Are there people or communities with whom a different account becomes possible?
Dónal is 60, lives alone, and has few people around him since his stroke. Asked who belongs in his club of life, he says: “Nobody, really.” His therapist doesn’t push for a list. Over time they find a few: a neighbour who brings the paper, a nurse who remembered his dog’s name, a singer whose songs got him through rehab, and his late brother. Small memberships still count.
Dónal is an illustrative composite, not a real person.
Giving some voices less
A person may decide that a doctor, teacher or relative who only saw deficit should have less influence over how they see themselves. This isn’t pretending those people didn’t matter. It is choosing whose view counts most now.
Disability community
For many disabled people, meeting others who share their experience changes how they understand themselves. Disability justice organisers describe interdependence and collective care as principles, not only practical needs. Re-membering can be a bridge to that community, if the person wants it. Not everyone does, and that is also a choice.
What needs attention here?
The person feels alone in their disability
Possible focus: re-membering, and whether they want connection with disabled peers
What to avoid: assuming community is what everyone wants
A harmful voice dominates
Possible focus: giving that voice less membership, and naming its effects
What to avoid: arguing with the voice on the person’s behalf
The person is seen only as receiving care
Possible focus: what they mean to others, without making usefulness the test
What to avoid: treating them only as a receiver
Possible starting points, agreed with the person, not rules.
How you’d know it helped
- The person can name voices that see them clearly.
- Harmful voices have less say.
- They recognise their own contributions to others.
Words you can use
For clientsQuestions worth carrying, as a therapist
Therapist Reflection- Have I asked who sees this person differently from the problem story?
- Do I assume disabled clients only receive care, and don’t give it?
- Have I offered connection with disability community, without pushing it?
Evidence & sources
Sources checked in October 2026, using targeted searches rather than a systematic review. “We have not located” means our searches did not find it.
Re-membering conversations and the “club of life”, drawing on Barbara Myerhoff: White, M., Maps of Narrative Practice (Norton, 2007).
Interdependence and collective access as principles of disability justice: Sins Invalid, 10 Principles of Disability Justice. Sins Invalid
The list of possible members and the guidance on contributions and community are this site’s synthesis.
Aisling is constructed for learning. She is not a real person.
We have not located research on re-membering conversations with disabled clients.