This distinctive collection explores the use of narratives in the social construction of wellness and illness. Narratives, Health, and Healing emphasizes what the process of narrating accomplishes--how it serves in the health communication process where people define themselves and present their social and relational identities. Organized into four parts, the chapters included here examine health narratives in interpersonal relationships, organizations, and public fora. The editors provide an extensive introduction to weave together the various threads in the volume, highlight the approach and contribution of each chapter, and bring to the forefront the increasingly important role of narrative in health communication. This volume offers important insights on the role of narrative in communicating about health, and it will be of great interest to scholars and graduate students in health communication, health psychology, and public health. It is also relevant to medical, nursing, and allied health readers.

Drawn from the popular "Narrative Matters" column in the journal Health Affairs, these essays embody a vision for a health care system that centers the humanity of patients and doctors alike. Health care decision making affects patients and families first and foremost, yet their perspectives are not always factored into health policy deliberations and discussions. In this anthology, Jessica Bylander brings together the personal stories of the patients, physicians, caregivers, policy makers, and others whose writings add much-needed human context to health care decision making. Drawn from the popular "Narrative Matters" column in the leading health policy journal Health Affairs, this collection features essays by some of the leading minds in health care today, including Pulitzer Prize–winner Siddhartha Mukherjee, MacArthur fellow Diane Meier, former Planned Parenthood president Leana S. Wen, and former secretary of health and human services Louis W. Sullivan. The collection also presents important stories from lesser-known voices, including a transgender doctor in Oklahoma who calls for better treatment of trans patients and a palliative care physician who reflects on how perspectives on hastening death have changed in recent years. A foreword written by National Humanities Medal recipient Abraham Verghese, MD, further rounds out the book. The collection of thirty-two essays is organized around several themes: • the practice of medicine • medical innovation and research • patient-centered care • the doctor-patient relationship • disparities and discrimination • aging and end-of-life care • maternity and childbirth • opioids and substance abuse Contributors: Louise Aronson, Laura Arrowsmith, Cheryl Bettigole, Cindy Brach, Gary Epstein-Lubow, Jonathan Friedlaender, Patricia Gabow, Katti Gray, Yasmin Sokkar Harker, Timothy Hoff, Carla Keirns, Raya Elfadel Kheirbek, Katy B. Kozhimannil, Pooja Lagisetty, Maria Maldonado, Maureen A. Mavrinac, Diane E. Meier, Dina Keller Moss, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Donna Jackson Nakazawa, Travis N. Rieder, Aroonsiri Sangarlangkarn, Elaine Schattner, Janice Lynch Schuster, Myrick C. Shinall, Gayathri Subramanian, Louis W. Sullivan, Gautham K. Suresh, Abraham Verghese, Otis Warren, Leana S. Wen, Charlotte Yeh

This open access book takes a multidisciplinary approach to provide a holistic understanding of late old age, and situates the aged person within the context of family, caregivers, clinical and other institutions. All through the book, the author discusses preparedness for an aging individual as well as the society in the Indian context. The book highlights inevitable but mostly neglected health issues like depression, dementia, fall, and frailty and provides detailed analyses of solutions that are practicable in low resource settings. It also brings up intergenerational differences and harmony in the context of holistic care of older Indians. Alongside clinical perspectives, the book uses narratives of elderly patients to dwell on the myriad of problems and issues that constitute old age healthcare. Demonstrating cases that range from the most influential to the most underprivileged elderly in India, the book enlightens multiple caregivers—doctors, nurses, and professional caregivers as well as family members—about the dynamic approach required in dealing with complex issues related to late old age. The narratives make the book relatable and interesting to non-academic readers, with important lessons for gerontological and geriatric caregiving. It is also of use to older adults in preparing for active aging.

This comprehensive book celebrates the coming of age of narrativein health care. It uses narrative to go beyond the patient's storyand address social, cultural, ethical, psychological,organizational and linguistic issues. This book has been written to help health professionals andsocial scientists to use narrative more effectively in theireveryday work and writing. The book is split into three, comprehensive sections;Narratives, Counter-narratives and Meta-narratives.

Narratives of Recovery from Mental Illness presents research that challenges the prevailing view that recovery from ‘mental illness’ must take place within the boundaries of traditional mental health services. While Watts and Higgins accept that medical treatment may be a vital start to some people’s recovery, they argue that mental health problems can also be resolved through everyday social interactions, and through peer and community support. Using a narrative approach, this book presents detailed recovery stories of 26 people who received various diagnoses of ‘mental illness’ and were involved in a mutual help group known as ‘GROW’. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of each story, chapters offer new understandings of the journey into mental distress and a progressive entrapment through a combination of events, feelings, thoughts and relationships. The book also discusses the process of ongoing personal liberation and healing which assists recovery, and suggests that friendship, social involvement, compassion, and nurturing processes of change all play key factors in improved mental well-being. This book provides an alternative way of looking at ‘mental illness’ and demonstrates many unexplored avenues and paths to recovery that need to be considered. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, nursing, social work and occupational therapy, as well as to service providers, policymakers and peer support organisations. The narratives of recovery within the book should also be a source of hope to people struggling with ‘mental illness’ and emotional distress

This compelling collection provides important insight into the human dimensions of health care and health policy.--Scott A. Strassels "American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy"

Storytelling is an essential tool for reporting and illuminating the cultural contexts of health: the practices and behavior that groups of people share and that are defined by customs, language, and geography. This report reviews the literature on narrative research, offers some quality criteria for appraising it, and gives three detailed case examples: diet and nutrition, well-being, and mental health in refugees and asylum seekers. Storytelling and story interpretation belong to the humanistic disciplines and are not a pure science, although established techniques of social science can be applied to ensure rigor in sampling and data analysis. The case studies illustrate how narrative research can convey the individual experience of illness and well-being, thereby complementing and sometimes challenging epidemiological and public health evidence.

Bridging memoir with key concepts in narratology, philosophy and history of medicine, and disability studies, this book identifies and names the phenomenon of metagnosis: the experience of learning in adulthood of a longstanding condition. It can occur when the condition has remained undetected (e.g. colorblindness) and/or when the diagnostic categories themselves have shifted (e.g. ADHD). More broadly, it can occur with unexpected revelations bearing upon selfhood, such as surprising genetic test results. Though this phenomenon has received relatively scant attention, learning of an unknown condition is often a significant and bewildering revelation, one that subverts narrative expectations and customary categories. How do we understand these revelations? In addressing this topic Danielle Spencer approaches narrative medicine as a robust research methodology comprising interdisciplinarity, narrative attentiveness, and the creation of writerly texts. Beginning with Spencer's own experience, the book explores the issues raised by metagnosis, from communicability to narrative intelligibility to different ways of seeing. Next, it traces the distinctive metagnostic narrative arc through the stages of recognition, subversion, and renegotiation, discussing this trajectory in light of a range of metagnostic experiences-from Blade Runner to real-world mid-life diagnoses. Finally, it situates metagnosis in relation to genetic revelations and the broader discourses concerning identity. Spencer proposes that better understanding metagnosis will not simply aid those directly affected, but will serve as a bellwether for how we will all navigate advancing biomedical and genomic knowledge, and how we may fruitfully interrogate the very notion of identity.