Narrative Medicine: The Use of History and Story in the Healing Process

by Lewis Mehl-Madrona

Book Overview

Seeks to restore the pivotal role of the patient's own story in the healing process - Shows how conventional medicine tends to ignore the account of the patient - Presents case histories where disease... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591430658
• ISBN13: 9781591430650
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Bear & Company
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Narrative Medicine is filled with deep wisdom and insight.

I am so grateful to have serendipitously stumbled upon Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona's work. Narrative Medicine is filled with deep wisdom and insight into the process of healing. He brings heart and soul to a profession which has become largely cold and clinical. Witnessing my Mother's health decline and then finally her diagnosis and cancer treatment truly opened my eyes to the heartlessness of our Western system. Reading Narrative Medicine made me feel less alone in my belief that health and wholeness is more rich and complex than diagnosing and medicating. I have been blessed with personally meeting and witnessing Dr. Mehl-Madrona at work. As a result, my view of illness and disease will never be the same. I highly recommend this book!

A major contribution

This book goes way beyond giving us a new understanding of medicine and the power of story in healing. It provides us with incredible insight into this too often untapped (or unconsciously tapped) power to create stories out of what we live, what we perceive, to give meaning to our lives. There are major parallels to draw between Dr Mehl-Madrona's books and Viktor Frankl's work, and his "logotherapy". Frankl helped his patients find meaning (logos) in their lives, and so does Lewis Mehl-MAdrona, but by using a different approach. As compared to previous books, "Narrative Medicine" allows readers to have a much deeper understanding of the workings of this medicine. It gets to the very principles of the power of stories. It is not always an easy book, but it is undoubtedly a major one, a reference book, to be read, re-read and considered : there is much to me learned from it !

A New Ancient Paradigm For Healing

Thank You Dr Mehl-Madrona for your dedication to awakening the true story in all of us and assisting us in writing a new story of health, wellness and possibilities. Healing is natural and its our story of our life that keeps whatever we live locked into dis-ease or perfect health. This book and all of his previous books bring us through many stories that assist us in awakening our own story and inspire us to know and choose to change it. Thank You for living your mission and dedication to bringing this Ancient and new way of healing to the public and professional sector. Narrative Medicine does break his work down more for us to look at it and ourselves in more usable ways. I have recommended it to my students and clients who are both lay people and holistic doctors-healers.

One of my favorite books, let alone textbooks.

In this book, Dr. Mehl-Madrona provides a thoughtful critique of modern medicine. While he acknowledges many of the positive things that modern medicine has done for society (like making it possible to attribute disease to more than just people's religious and moral failings), he also proves how the discipline misses many aspects of health and wellness. In the first few chapters of the book, Dr. Mehl-Madrona references a wide range of topics, from traditional stories to recent research on quantum physics. These chapters help to provide a foundation for understanding how narrative medicine can be conceived and employed in practice. Dr. Mehl-Madrona has a writing style that is very relaxed and inviting to the reader. Through his writing, he creates a dialectic in the truest sense: instead of trying to discredit all of modern medicine, or attempting to integrate narrative medicine into previously established theories of modern medicine, Dr. Mehl-Madrona provides a vital approach to medicine and health. This book was used as part of a senior Psychology class. However, I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning about the field of medicine, about how doctors today treat physical and mental illnesses, and how narrative medicine can be used to help people.