Northwest Narrative Medicine

Narrative medicine, Pacific Northwest style, strikes me as something worthwhile. Frontier, boundary pushing narrative medicine. Pencils (and pens, and laptops) with golden wings! We now have (thanks to the folks in Portland, Oregon) a Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative.  Next month (October 20-22nd) they will hold their second annual Narrative Medicine Conference in Portland, Oregon. I am honored to be a part of it and will be giving a keynote address titled “Endurance Test: The Limits of Resilience” in which I’ll examine the unintended consequences of the often saccharine sweet resilience research and will, instead, propose the concept of endurance in our work and lives. Endurance, as described by psychiatrist and anthropologist Arthur Kleinman, makes so much more sense to me than does resilience—especially in the times we are living through. Kleinman writes:

“What helps us endure? And I mean by endure withstand, live through, put up with, and suffer. I do not mean the currently fashionable and superficially optimistic idea of ‘resilience’ as denoting a return to robust health and happiness. Those who have struggled in the darkness of their own pain or loss, or that of patients or loved ones, know that these experiences, even when left behind, leave traces that may only be remembered viscerally but shape their lives beyond.”  (Arthur Kleinman, “The art of medicine: how we endure.” The Lancet. January 11, 2014. 383: 119-120.)