The request for a precise definition of memory would put any serious academic into difficulty. To provide a synthetic response, we could define memory as a marvellous mechanism, a means for taking us back in time. Memory is, therefore, a mental activity which connects us over time and gives a meaning to existence. Telling one's story, one's autobiography, signifies primarily taking stock of the state of one's own identity; it signifies communication, communicating who we are to ourselves and others. It means transforming the interior monologue into dialogue with the other; it means scanning and modulating our emotions through the representation of the events of our lives.

Autobiographical narration has recently been subject to specific study. This book utilises the autobiographical device in its formative significance, both in the process of the construction of self through the narration of infancy, and in the formation of identity in disabled persons, and finally as a tool in the analysis of the relation between parents and children with handicaps. The autobiographical evolutions presented here by way of example posit narration as a formative tool, for both the narrating subject and for the reader. Effectively, while for the narrator the writing assumes an important cathartic role, for the reader it becomes a means of consolidating professional competencies for the accompaniment of persons in formation - both disabled and not - in the construction of a life project.