"Narrative medicine has developed an identity already. Clinicians of many disciplines are being summoned to a practice that recognizes patients by receiving their accounts of self.
Starting from different positions, the four authors have converged in a strong and shared commitment to narrative health care. They conceptualize narrative health care practices within frameworks derived from the social sciences and psychology, and, to a lesser degree, phenomenology and autobiographical theory. They relate the development of narrative medicine to relationship-centered care, patient-centered care, and complex responsive process of relating theory, positing that narrative medicine can help clinicians to develop the skills required to practice relationship-centered care. The book details--with exercises, resource texts, and abundant scholarly apparatus--how these skills can be developed and strengthened.
This work will change health care. Because of its scholarly rigor, its multi-voiced sources, and its highly practical features (lists, activities, key ideas and key references, primary texts written by health care professionals and patients), this work will be a guide in the field for those who practice medicine or nursing or social work. The book establishes that there is a field to be practiced, a need to practice it, and a means to develop the wherewithal to do so."
From the Foreword by Rita Charon, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, New York.
