Abstract
Cancer is a traumatic life event that breaks into individual existence, threatening and destabilising all identity dimensions of sick people. Therefore, it is necessary to propose an elaboration of this negative experience, shifting the focus from a vision centred exclusively on the disease towards processes that promote resilience and create chances for a positive development and personal growth. Using Narrative Medicine in oncology allows a building process with the patient, based on shared meanings of health and disease, which can itself be therapeutic and contribute to the improvement or the acceptance of the disease and the treatments. The narrative, developed with the technique of the diary, is not simply a “container of events” but assists the patient in the process of adaptation to the disease, creating a space in which (s)he can express, develop, integrate, build and finally mentalise meanings and experiences related to the oncological disease, recognised as a critical event within his/her autobiographical memory.