Narratives in Medicine

Abstract

Stories can convey a lot. And yet they can often be overlooked or dismissed, to the detriment of the therapeutic interaction. Somewhere in my 40s, I was having a midlife crisis and seeing a therapist. She asked me to tell her about my mother. I began to do just that including a description of my mother’s death which had been sudden and a little mysterious. She asked me what I thought had really happened. I told her my interpretation of events. Soon after that she announced that she had heard my “stories” and we would now move to more important concerns. The implication was that the stories were merely a prelude or introduction and we would now move to serious issues and therapy. I felt cut off, devalued, and even betrayed. I had shared very intimate stories with this person and was expecting some engagement with me and my stories, which felt like a part of my bared soul. Not surprisingly, although I persisted with the therapy for a while, I never recovered from that initial shock or benefited from the therapy. I suspect that my underlying anger against this woman prevented me from engaging in the therapeutic process.

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Attributed to Ernest Hemingway