Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The Narrative Structure of Experience (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology) [Hardcover]

Cheryl Mattingly (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521630045 | ISBN-13: 978-0521630047 | Publication Date: November 28, 1998 | Edition: 1

There is growing interest in "therapeutic narratives" and the relation between narrative and healing. Cheryl Mattingly's ethnography of the practice of occupational therapy in a North American hospital investigates the complex interconnections between narrative and experience in clinical work. Viewing the world of disability as a socially constructed experience, it presents fascinatingly detailed case studies of clinical interactions between occupational therapists and patients, many of them severely injured and disabled, and illustrates the diverse ways in which an ordinary clinical interchange is transformed into a dramatic experience governed by a narrative plot. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including anthropological studies of narrative and ritual, literary theory, phenomenology and hermeneutics, this book develops a narrative theory of social action and experience. While most contemporary theories of narrative presume that narratives impose an artificial coherence upon lived experience, Mattingly argues for a revision of the classic mimetic position. If narrative offers a correspondence to lived experience, she contends, the dominant formal feature which connects the two is not narrative coherence but narrative drama. Moving and sophisticated, this book is an innovative contribution to the study of modern institutions and to anthropological theory.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Cheryl Mattingly has produced a little masterpiece. Her book brings anthropological theory to bear in a most subtle and knowledgeable way on how occupational therapists help patients who are so severely disabled that they are no longer able to live their lives with the ordinariness and banality to which we all become accustomed. Her focus is principally upon how therapists and patients together create a new and workable life narrative that restores meaning and order to a shattered life. She manages this task with a combination of anthropological astuteness and human compassion that is gripping. And along the way she succeeds in shedding fresh light on such ancient riddles as how life imitates (narrative) art while such art remains in some respects an imitation of life. This is a book not just for the medical anthropologist or the occupational therapist but for human scientists at large!" Jerome Bruner

"Mattingly provides the richest discussion to date of the relevance of narrative theory for many of the most crucial issues of contemporary studies of culture. Plot, motive, desire, sufferance, reversal and transformation are all found to be features of therapeutic 'rituals of the everyday' - and by extension of the achievement of 'significant experience' in the most ordinary social routines. Exquisite reflections on philosophical and literary texts, juxtaposed with captivating stories from the clinic, this is a work of maturity and great importance." Byron Good and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good

"Mattingly has clearly moved the conversation about narrative in clinical settings forward. Her accounts and analysis are often so subtle and sensitive that the text moves us in ways that go beyond `purely' academic writing to experiences that enrich our lives as well as our understandings. Surely this is the most important work we can do in this field." Barbara A. Sherman Heifferon, Literature and Medicine

"...this is an impressive book in terms of the critique of existing theory and the deep analysis narrative can provide....This book encourages reflection into personal practice as well as to listening to the narratives of patients....an excellent text to use as part of anadvanced clinical reasoning course." Occupational Theory in Health Care

Book Description

There is growing interest in 'therapeutic narratives', stories that help to explain why people need to create stories, and what in the particular structure of clinical practice gives therapists and patients practical reasons for constructing stories with a specific narrative form. This ethnography of the practice of occupational therapy in a North American hospital reveals how participants transform ordinary clinical interchange into a standardized story-line. It is an innovative contribution to anthropological theory.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (November 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521630045
• ISBN-13: 978-0521630047
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #935,652 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great effort, November 9, 2006

By 

Dena Marie Oden "Lily" (Lake Arrowhead, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The Narrative Structure of Experience (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology) (Paperback)

I had polio in 1947. Subsequently, I spent years in physical therapy and medical community services. This is a book clearly written by an author who has very little experience in the area of physical suffering or disability. Yet her clear and precise understanding of what denigrates and also what boosts the morale of patients dealing with severe trauma shines forth. I applaud this effort. The constant push toward compassion found in her book and the call to carefully listen to the stories of individual patients astounds someone like me who grew up in the confines of a rather harsh and unfeeling medical community where listening to the patient was unheard of. This is for me a glorious breakthrough. And yet, the most crucial and pivotal assistance ever imparted in my estimation is a spiritual understanding of how we come to terms with faith in our Maker and God during times of tragedy and loss. Personally, I don't know how anyone survives severe disability apart from the grace and compassion of the Almighty Who can and will enter into our place of suffering and bestow spiritual strength to press on. Learning that God is a very present Help in trouble enables and fosters triumph in times of darkness.