Storied Health And Illness

Health and illness are storied experiences that necessarily entail personal, cultural, and political complexities. For all of us, communicating about health and illness requires a continuous negotiation of these complexities and a delicate balance between what we learn about the biology of disease from providers and our own very personal, subjective experiences of being ill. Storied Health and Illness brings together dozens of noteworthy scholars, both established and emerging, in a provocative collection that embraces narrative ways of knowing to think about, analyze, and reconsider our own and others’ health beliefs, behaviors, and communication. Comprehensive content reflects the editors’ substantial research in integrative health, narrative care, and innovative ways of improving well-being and quality of life in personal relationships, healthcare, the workplace, and community settings. Unique narrative approaches to the study of health communication include: • 14 chapters written by 22 contributors who use engaging stories from their own research or personal experience to introduce and ground foundational communication concepts in healthcare, health promotion, community support, organizational wellness, and other health-related sites of interest. • Compelling stories of individuals living with the inherent challenges and unexpected opportunities of mental illness, addiction, aging, cancer, dialysis, sexual harassment, miscarriage, obesity, alopecia, breastfeeding, health threats to immigrant workers, developmental differences, and youth gun violence. • 36 Health Communication in Action (HCIA) sidebars that highlight applied research of innovative health communication scholars in their own words and then prompt readers to think more deeply about their own perspectives and experiences. • Theorizing Practice boxes that encourage readers to reflect on stories that describe significant experiences in their own and others’ lives as they consider assumptions and enlarge their viewpoints in previously unimagined ways.

Our personalities and our identities are intimately bound up with the stories that we tell to organize and to make sense of our lives. To understand the human meaning of illness, we therefore must turn to the stories we tell about illness, suffering, and medical care. Stories of Sickness explores the many dimensions of what illness means to the sufferers and to those around them, drawing on depictions of illness in great works of literature and in nonfiction accounts. The exploration is primarily philosophical but incorporates approaches from literature and from the medical social sciences. When it was first published in 1987, Stories of Sickness helped to inaugurate a renewed interest in the importance of narrative studies in health care. For the Second Edition the text has been thoroughly revised and significantly expanded. Four almost entirely new chapters have been added on the nature, complexities, and rigor of narrative ethics and how it is carried out. There is also an additional chapter on maladaptive ways of being sick that deals in greater depth with disability issues. Health care professionals, students of medicine and bioethics, and ordinary people coping with illness, no less than scholars in the health care humanities and social sciences, will find much value in this volume. Unique Features: *Philosophically sophisticated yet clearly written and easily accessible *Interdisciplinary approach--combines philosophy, literature, health care, social sciences *Contains many fascinating stories and vignettes of illness drawn from both fiction and nonfiction *A new and comprehensive overview of the "hot topic" of narrative ethics in medicine and health care

The use of narrative methods has a long history in palliative care, pioneered by Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement, Narrative and Stories in Health Care provides a vibrant, multidisciplinary examination of work with narrative and stories in contemporary health and social care, with a focus on the care of people who are ill and dying. It animates the academic literature with provocative 'real-world' examples from international contributors, including palliative care service users and those working in the social and human sciences, medicine, theology, and the creative arts. Narrative and Stories in Health Care addresses and clarifies core issues: What is a narrative? What is a story? What are some of the main methods and models that can be used and for what purposes? What practical and ethical dilemmas can the methods entail in work with illness, death and dying? As well as highlighting the power of stories to create new possibilities, the book also acknowledges the conceptual, methodological and ethnical problems and challenges inherent in narrative work. As the hospice and palliative care movement evolves to meet the challenges of 21st century health care, this fascinating book highlights how narratives and stories can be attended to in ways that are productive, ethical, and caring.

Publisher description

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.

Most Canadians believe that their health is shaped by luck, genetics, lifestyle choices, and treatment options--and government agencies, public health units, and disease associations all reinforce this perception. This study, however, tells a different story, arguing that it is the social determinants of health, as imposed by the financial markets, that dictate the health of Canadians today. Showing that health care can be greatly improved with simple changes to social policy, the discussion describes the impact of food, housing, employment, education, and social services on the nation`s health.

This book provides a three-part investigation into identity construction. Theory, voice and praxis are all represented as the book follows the rationale, stories and narrative methodology of the study of a group of women. The final part of the book presents a new model of identity construction framed in women's health identity.