Narrative in Health Care

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 practised a need to practise it and a means to develop the wherewithal to do so.