A Narrative Approach to Healing Chronic Illness

Thomas R. Egnew

doi:10.1370/afm.2182

Article Figures & Data

Tables

Additional Files

View popup

Table 1

Questions to Explore Suffering

Are you suffering?⁷

I know you have pain, but are there things that are even worse than just the pain?⁷

Are you frightened by all this? What exactly are you frightened of?⁷

What do you worry (are afraid) is going to happen to you?⁷

What is the worst thing about all this?⁷

What is it like to live with ?¹⁹

What concerns you the most?¹⁹

What does your illness mean for you now and in the future?³⁸

What does this illness mean for you in relation to others?³⁸

How are you doing in everyday life? How do things feel?³⁸

What is the most difficult aspect of your illness?³⁹

What do you fear most about this illness (or treatment)?³⁹

What concrete difficulties does your illness present?³⁹

What should I know about you as a person to take the best care of you that I can?⁴⁰

What are things at this time of life that are most important to you or that concern you the most?⁴⁰

Who else (or what else) will be affected by what’s happening to your health?⁴⁰

Additional Files

Tables

The Article in Brief

A Narrative Approach to Healing Chronic Illness

Thomas R. Egnew

Background Clinicians do not always feel prepared to manage the suffering that can accompany a patient's chronic illness. This essay suggests that, through thoughtful exploration of suffering, clinicians can support their patients through chronic and terminal illness.

What This Study Found According to the essay, "What patients bring to their clinicians is their stories." It is through these stories that clinicians try to understand and treat patients' health. When patients experience chronic or life-threatening illness and their suffering increases, clinicians can take on the role of holistic healer by addressing the inevitable existential conflicts in patients' narratives and helping them edit their stories to promote acceptance and meaning. In this guiding role, clinicians can help patients transcend suffering, "assume the mantle of their heritage as healers," and find meaning in their work.
The Article in Brief

You Will Have a New Life

Adi Finkelstein

Background For a young woman with ulcerative colitis, a total colectomy (removal of the colon) marks the end of an illness and the beginning of a journey of personal discovery.

What This Study Found The author describes her physical illness and the decision to undergo a colectomy after which, her surgeon promised her, she would have a new life. Over time, she did indeed build a new life, although perhaps not the one her surgeon envisioned. Her journey included letting go of her desire to be an exemplary patient and embracing the liberation that came with accepting her disability, as well as a career researching and teaching medical and nursing students about chronic illness. Living with her own disability while helping others better understand chronic illness is, she writes, "a paradox that sustains me."