More in the evolving meme of narrative medicine: Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (my alma mater) have found that for a select population of individuals listening to personal narratives helps control blood pressure. While the power of stories is old news, the connection to clinical outcomes is what’s newsworthy here. Read Pauline Chen’s nice piece in the NYT. The implications for ongoing work in this area are mind boggling.
The authors sum it up niecly:
Emerging evidence suggests that storytelling, or narrative communication, may offer a unique opportunity to promote evidence-based choices in a culturally appropriate context. Stories can help listeners make meaning of their lives, and listeners may be influenced if they actively engage in a story, identify themselves with the storyteller, and picture themselves taking part in the action.
This nascent field of narrative medicine caught my eye this week when I stumbled on the work of Rita Charon and concept of the parallel chart. Extrapolation to social media may be the next iteration of this kind of work.
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Very exciting! We’re moving from the the first step, which is bearing witness and “modeling” the emotions, to actively influencing the illness experience. I wonder if we could experiment with different types of illness narratives (e.g., “restitution”, “chaos”, and “quest”, as outlined in this article: http://www.aissg.org/articles/TELLING.HTM) and observe changes in clinical outcomes.
Thanks for highlighting that the ability to tell our stories and hearing others tell their stories have a direct influence on health outcomes. My current research is exploring the intersection of traditional journaling/narrative with social media by “Communicating the Experience of Illness through Patient Blogging”. I am in the initial stages of formative research with Dr. Lisa Gualtieri at Tufts University School of Medicine and look forward to suggestions of patient blogs that would be beneficial to include.
Pamela Katz Ressler, RN, BSN, HN-BC
pressler@stressresources.com
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