Book Review: Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness

March 24, 2009

Rita Charon describes narrative medicine as a clinical practice, “defined as medicine practiced with the narrative competence to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness.” The idea of narrative medicine is a fine one: emphasize the role of narrative (and thus meanings, life histories, and emotions) in medicine, and especially physician-patient interactions. It’s a fundamentally humanist approach, with the goal of treating the whole person rather than the disease. (Metapsychology)