In Stories Matter, Rita Charon
and Martha Montello collect twenty-one articles spread over 226 pages.  The authors
are academics, some doctors, trained in rhetoric, literature, philosophy,
psychology, the humanities, medical ethics, and history.  Some are well-known
in their fields, including Jerome Bruner, Wayne Booth, Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Tod
Chambers and David B. Morris.  The issue uniting these papers is how narrative
makes a difference in understanding medical ethics.  A few authors focus on
medical ethics in novels, while others discuss literary critics and theory. 
Others discuss narrative in a more general psychological way, looking at how
people talk about their own lives and the decisions they have to make.  Some
look particularly at the narratives people frame around illness and medical
treatment.  Some of the papers are just a few pages long, while others are
quite substantial pieces of work.  The variety of approaches will lead most
readers to dip into this book rather than read it from beginning to end.  It is
a book mainly for specialists in medical ethics, although it may appeal also to
some literary scholars.  On the whole, the papers are thoughtful and careful,
and advance the discussion of medical narratives. 

Only one paper explicitly addresses
itself to mental disorders.  In "Narrative Understanding and Methods in
Behavioral Health," psychiatrist Richard Martinez discusses the case of
one of his patients and argues that the biopsychosocial perspective needs to be
supplemented by a narrative approach.  He argues that narrative highlights
detailed elements of language and storytelling, and these will strengthen
empathy and compassion.  Paying attention to a patient’s life is a way of
caring for the whole person rather than simply treating a disorder.  In
long-term treatment, a psychotherapist enables a patient to become the narrator
of her own story.  Finally, using narrative can help to ground treatment when a
clinician does not have strong faith in the diagnostic categories and takes a
somewhat skeptical attitude towards the current psychiatric theories.  This is
a useful paper, and while it does not break new ground, it does summarize a
number of important ideas.

© 2004 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.

Christian
Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of the Arts & Humanities
Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island.
He is also editor of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main
research is on philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Philosophical, Ethics