We are human – an invisible and fundamental aspect of rehabilitation in acquired brain injury

The fact that acquired brain injury (ABI) rehabilitation services are made up of human beings supporting other human beings is not often considered in research or practice. In this special issue of Brain Impairment we are delighted to be able to share the work of academics who are engaging with this aspect of ABI rehabilitation. As editors, when we met in 2018 at the 41st annual conference of the Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Iimpairment (ASSBI), we were struck by how several presentations, although using slightly different language, were all touching on the same aspect of rehabilitation - human connection. Despite consensus and anecdotal evidence that human connection is a critical component of rehabilitation, there is remarkably little written in the literature to help us unpack, reflect on and harness human connection. Human connection is therefore not only ‘ invisible ’ in itself but also in developments in rehabilitation research and practice. As a first step, we would like to encourage service managers, researchers and clinicians to consider the value of human connection within service provision, to explore new ways of researching which allows human connection to come to the fore, and to celebrate the experience and power of human connection in our therapeutic relationships. In this special issue we invite you, the reader into the world of the invisible and immeasurable - human connection. We have a diverse range of authors and topics ranging from those reflecting individual lived experience, through therapeutic relationship, to wider social discourses. Although the focus for each author is discrete we feel that each contribution adds to this continuum as each part cannot exist without each other; the individual experience is always relational and social in an ever changing and powerful sea of meaning. The first author in our issue, Rixon sets the scene and in a way ‘ says it all ’ . Through sharing his own experience of