Friendships and intimacy: Promoting the maintenance and development of relationships in residential neurorehabilitation.

Abstract

Social re-integration after acquired brain injury is an important part of successful rehabilitation outcome, both in terms of return to work and emotional wellbeing. Residential rehabilitation often places individuals at a distance from their pre injury social context. Supporting the maintenance or development of intimate relationships is therefore a crucial aspect of neurobehavioural rehabilitation. However, the development of new relationships is not without risk. To provide a framework for considering interventions around personal and intimate relationships post brain injury, taking into account the complexities of risk assessment and risk management. The authors have used clinical case examples to develop a framework to support risk assessment and intervention planning. The framework has been used in a residential rehabilitation service to support the development and maintenance of intimate relationships post injury. No formal data collection was used. Case examples are used to illustrate how the framework can assist clinical practice. The authors provide a framework to assist clinicians working with complex clinical cases to think through options for intervention to maintain or develop friendships and intimacy whilst taking account of factors affecting risk management.