Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots

Abstract

There is a 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 from 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.

Changing bodies, changing narratives and the consequences of tellability: a case study of becoming disabled through sport

“…For Mattingly (1998), the unacceptability of the chaos narrative to listeners is closely linked to the central issue of desire that draws both the hero of the story and the listener to elevate certain story outcomes over others. In this regard, as Frank (2004) suggests, the words 'able-bodied' and 'disabled' can draw people away from the present into some future that is desired or feared.…”

Reflexões sobre a investigação do raciocínio clínico em terapia ocupacional em saúde mental: o caso do Método Terapia Ocupacional Dinâmica

“…Durante a análise dos diários da segunda pesquisa, percebi que seria infértil tentar me apoiar nas categorias dos diferentes tipos de raciocínio clínico existentes na literatura (MATTINGLY;FLEMING, 1994;SCHELL;SCHELL, 2008), pois trabalhava com terapeutas ocupacionais que tinham clareza, ou estavam fazendo grande esforço para ter clareza, de seus referenciais teórico-metodológicos, ou, mesmo, das percepções de como suas ações não estavam de acordo com o que elas acreditavam. Desse modo, deixei de lado tais categorias e parti para a análise de conteúdo dos trechos reflexivos de narrativas sobre a prática, que me possibilitaram o acesso ao raciocínio.…”

“…Sabemos, desde essa época, que nosso raciocínio é de base narrativa, que se preocupa com as particularidades dos casos, tanto para construir nossa compreensão, ao contar histórias sobre os pacientes, como para conduzir o processo terapêutico de modo a construir uma história terapêutica de sucesso, na qual o sucesso reside em possibilitar ao paciente a vivência de uma experiência significativa, que transforme seu modo de ver a vida e de se ver, na qual assuma um papel mais ativo (MATTINGLY, 1998;MATTINGLY;FLEMING, 1994).…”

“…Embora esses diferentes tipos de raciocínio sejam definidos por alguns autores (MATTINGLY;FLEMING, 1994;SCHELL;SCHELL, 2008) e utilizados de modo generalizado, algumas pesquisas, há tempos, vêm questionando não somente a generalidade dos termos mas também a de seus conteúdos. Será que, nas práticas em saúde mental, o raciocínio procedimental -definido em Mattingly e Fleming (1994) como aquele utilizado para encontrar procedimentos mais eficazes para melhorar o desempenho funcional da pessoa com determinado déficit -na verdade, não seria um raciocínio interativo, que busca a promoção de relações interpessoais, como aponta Ward (2003)?…”

Exploring multiple responses to a chaos narrative

“…In certain kinds of narrative therapy, for instance, there may then be the possibility of telling a new story and moving chaos into the background of one's life (see Angus and McLeod, 2004). Further, along with a depression-therapy response, breakthrough restitution responses have the potential to offer people concrete hope which may help to palliate or assuage misery, construct a sense of continuity after SCI, and create a plot structure in which having this kind of hope means having a future (Mattingly, 1998;Smith and Sparkes, 2005). Moreover, for Shakespeare (2006), if stem cells therapies materialise, and if they are safe and effective, some disabled people may benefit and their quality of life could improve.…”