#narrativemedicine

[mariannerpetit]

Thank you, @narrative_medicine! How lovely. @furtivedoodles and I talk about our collaboration on doodles-as-an-anti burnout-practice. https://sps.columbia.edu/news/two-artist-educators-both-columbia-narrative-medicine-alumni-turned-their-love-doodling-new #narrativemedicine #graphicmedicine #nmed https://www.instagram.com/p/CUUv4IMrjm7/?utm_medium=tumblr

[mariannerpetit]

A few illustrations / stills from “Mouth & Toes: The World of 19th Century (Performative) Silhouette Artists with Disabilities” which I’m working on currently through a Creative and Performing Artist / Writer Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society and will be presented at the Examined Life conference in October. It tells the stories of the performative world of disabled and atypically figured artists working in the very popular and affordable alternative to portraiture, the silhouette. Artists include Martha Ann Honeywell, Sarah Rogers, and Nellis Saunders. The book will also explore the role of the Peale Museum, the physiognotrace, and the work of Moses Williams, former slave of Charles Peale and master silhouette artist. The final form(s) will include a handmade illuminated “book” in the form of a moving panorama as well as an animated downloadable eBook. #graphicmedicine #narrativemedicine #examinedlife #aas #americanantiquariansociety https://www.instagram.com/p/CCbZhXJDE3_/?igshid=1kk42gdccdmsb

[mariannerpetit]

Last week was the one year anniversary of launching the “Our Hysterectomies” project. As of this month, and because stories matter and the world needs kindness, the “Our Hysterectomies” eBook is now free for download forever more. You can go to https://ourhysterectomies.com and download your copy. Please share with anyone who may find it useful. (Our Hysterectomies is an eBook containing the illustrated first-person accounts of 16 women who have had hysterectomies, oophorectomies, myomectomies and more. The downloadable book contains animation, as well as printable DIY papercraft.) #ourhysterectomies #graphicmedicine #narrativemedicine #narrativeart #storytelling #hysterectomy #hysterectomies #medicalhumanities https://www.instagram.com/p/B2yn2UVlvPU/?igshid=1gf3ld7eo3e3t

[mariannerpetit]

I have some (anatomical) artwork included in the current issue of “Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine” (http://http://theintima.org) a literary journal dedicated to promoting the theory and practice of Narrative Medicine. Check it out. There are some really interesting articles! #narrativemedicine #anatomicalart #medicalhumanities https://www.instagram.com/p/ByaIiD0lTR0/?igshid=tcns3t4uq35o

[wagebeauty-blog]

AN INTRO TO NARRATIVE MEDICINE

The idea that there is an intimate relationship between the stories that a human being is enveloped in (within personal & social spheres) & their physiological/ psychological health, is not a drastic edgy one; it is common sense. Stories are the engine of identity; it is well documented the way Life Story coherence influences wellness & despair for a person/ tribe/ nation. When a person is wounded, a nurturing society would ideally look beyond solely an idea of "accountability" into authorship of behavior. Where did they learn that action was ok? When wounds expand beyond a person, into a collective behavior occurring at epidemic levels (from self harm to shootings), then the entire society is wise to shift their perspective from approaching the individual as isolated story, and explore what in the cultural DNA of the national narrative is creating this behavior. Enter Narrative Therapy: a method using within medicine to center the stories an individual holds (conscious or not) to unpack origins of behavior or belief. It is a century old approach that, within the West, emerges in the late 1800’s via two key icons in Western Psychology, Freud & Jung. Before heading separate directions in schools of thought, each of these thinkers popularized using the personal stories of patients in order to access blacked out memories or wounds the patient was not cognitively aware of. Narrative Medicine is at core, Narrative Therapy 2.0.  Whereas Narrative Therapy engages primarily the use of an individual’s story for a specific patient to explore & heal a wound, Narrative Medicine engages the entire economy of stories (the social narratives) an entire group is situated in.  From this space it begins to explore ways of engaging public language, authoring new stories (via behavior & culture), & developing narrative competence amongst all medical practitioners. The ideas currently being encompassed via Narrative Medicine: *where is the field now? *where would we like to grow it forward? *what does it means for parents, physicians, & storytellers? Love to your historical narrative called Survival. Love to your existing narrative called Resiliency. Love to the new one we will grow called Thriving.

-Mark Gonzales

[medhumans]

“English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache.”

Woolf, Virginia. On Being Ill. Ashfield, Mass. : Paris Press, 2002.

[medhumans]

“One would have thought novels . . . would have been devoted to influenza; epic poems to typhoid; odes to pneumonia, lyrics to toothache. But no.”

Woolf, Virginia. On Being Ill. Ashfield, Mass. : Paris Press, 2002.

[medhumans]

“Medicine is an interpretive activity, a learned inquiry that begins with the understanding of the patient and ends in therapeutic action on the patient’s behalf. Far from being objective, a matter of hard facts, medicine is grounded in subjective knowledge— not of the generalized body in textbooks, which is scientific enough— but the physician’s understanding of the particular patient...That physicians are scientifically educated and technologically trained alters not one bit the narrative structure of their practical knowledge. Indeed, the physician’s own subjectivity as well as the subjectivity of the patient is controlled by the fixed conventions of medical narrative.”

Hunter, Kathryn Montgomery. Doctor’s Stories: The Narrative Structure of Medical Knowledge. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991. Print.