Narrative In Illness Experience

I learned that Narrative therapy helps a client to use their cognitive thinking by learning to look at a problem and themselves from a different perspective. Also, a narrative therapist helps the clients to build thinking positive with his/her own story. According to Nichols (2013), “Narrative therapist aren’t problem solvers. Instead, they help people separate themselves from problem-saturated stories (and destructive cultural assumptions) to open space for new and more constructive views of themselves” (p. 272). My understating of narrative therapy is that a client needs to stop being the victim/aggressor and be able to identify the problem as a problem. For example, I am always thinking

Storytelling is a key component of both Bell’s and Stout’s patients therapy and recovery because it allows them to understand better what has happened in their life and what is happening in their brain. Storytelling and reviewing past experiences is key in making sense and understand personal experiences and their effects on a person.

In the summer between third and fourth grade my mother and father sat my sister and I down and informed us that my mom had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My mom’s experience of MS emulates narrative concepts detailed in Arthur W. Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller. In his work, Frank describes different kinds of illness narratives ranging from the morbid chaos narrative to the more inspiring restitution narrative. In accordance with Frank’s definitions, my mother has responded to the situation by using her body didactically and communicatively by proactively reaching out to an active community of MS sufferers, including recently diagnosed friends and family. She has used her body with discipline as well, through her commitment to a prescription of nightly injections. However, the dynamic nature of my mother’s experience with MS complicates Frank’s classification of body types because she embodies multiple body types at various stages of her disease. Her illness narrative most closely matches that of the quest narrative, drawing elements from both the automythology and memoir facets.

Narrative therapy (NT) is a therapeutic technique that guides the client through a process of identifying and deconstructing the narratives they hold true, and reconstructing or re-authoring (Epston & White, 1990) new and empowering narratives. It is based on the idea that people understand their lives through their narration of lived experience (DiLollo, Neimeyer & Manning, 2002). “As narrators, the significance of our lives is dictated by the stories that we live and that we tell — that is, by the ways that we link events in meaningful sequences and thereby constitute a sense of self as the protagonist of our own autobiography” (Neimeyer, 1995). Narrative therapists tend to look for metaphors that have powerful connotations in a person’s

The core concept of narrative therapy is rooted in postmodern theory. This includes having a positive and hopeful view of clients and their power to create change. Also, taking a “not-knowing” stance is essential in order to enhance collaboration between clients and therapist. Narrative Therapy encourages therapists to remain curious and acknowledge

Smith, Martha, et al. “Narrative Description and Rationale.” Dickinson Electronic Archives. University Of Virginia Press Electronic Imprint, 1994. Web. 18 Mar. 2012.

Narrative reasoning focuses on the client’s particular circumstances and takes into account the client’s past, present, and future and how their current circumstances will affect their life. This gives the practitioner ideas on how to collaborate with the client and family based on the individual’s journey. It is important for the occupational therapy practitioner to help the client see how the treatment

1. Growing up we all heard stories. Different types of stories, some so realistic, we cling onto them farther into our lives. Stories let us see and even feel the world in different prespectives, and this is becuase of the writter or story teller. We learn, survive and entertain our selves using past experiences, which are in present shared as stories. This is why Roger Rosenblatt said, "We are a narrative species."

Storytelling’s impact on people who use it has been life saving in certain cases. By asserting the existence of different perspectives, writers get to suppress their own opinions in order to sympathize with others. (insert thing about meta-fiction) With this idea in mind, author Kate Taylor wrote the novel Serial Monogamy, a meta-fiction of a writer recalling the story of her husband’s affair and her deal with terminal breast cancer, all through her telling of Dickens’ secret life and tales of the Arabian Nights. In Serial Monogamy, storytelling makes people more understanding as they explore new perspectives.

The biopsychosocial model (BPS) is a framework used to systematically consider the interactions between biological, psychological and social influences on human functioning, in the context of a person’s disease or illness (Boundless Psychology, 2016). This integrated approach suggests that health and sickness overlap and can be best understood by looking at the multiple combinations of these influences and how they interact and affect a person’s health and wellbeing (Wade, 2009). This assignment will aim to discuss the BPS model, describe the different perspectives within the theory and demonstrate how they apply to patient care. In order to do this, a case study of a person with a chronic health condition will be introduced and the factors