Narrative-Based Practice in Health and Social Care outlines a vision of how witnessing narratives, paying attention to them, and developing an ability to question them creatively, can make the person’s emerging story the central focus of health and social care, and of healing. This text gives an account of the practical application of ideas and skills from contemporary narrative studies to health and social care. Promoting narrative-based practice in everyday encounters with patients and clients, and in supervision, teaching, teamwork and management, it presents "Conversations Inviting Change," an established narrative-based model of interactional skills. Underpinned by an account of theory from narrative studies and related fields, including communication theory and systems thinking, it is written for students and practitioners across a broad range of professions in primary and secondary health care and social care. More information about "Conversations Inviting Change" is available at www.conversationsinvitingchange.com. This website includes podcasts, presentations and further teaching material as well as details of forthcoming courses, and is continually updated with information about the approach described in this book.

This book provides an important contribution to the new and growing field of ‘narrative-based medicine’. It specifically addresses the largest area of medical activity, primary care. It provides both a theoretical framework and practical skills for dealing with individual consultations, family work, clinical supervision and teamwork, and offers a comprehensive approach to the whole range of work in primary care. Using a wide range of clinical examples, it shows how professionals in primary care can help clarify patients’ existing stories, and elucidate new stories. It can be used as a training resource and includes exercises and summaries of key points to consider. It is based on, and describes, an established evaluated training method, and is of immediate and significant practical use to readers. It is essential reading for general practitioners, practice nurses and others in the primary care team, psychologists, family therapists, counsellors and other professionals attached to primary care. GP trainers, tutors and course organisers will find it a valuable educational tool. Professionals elsewhere in primary care such as pharmacists, dentists and optometrists, and academics in medical sociology and medical anthropology will also find it very useful.

Edited by two leading general practitioners and with contributions from over 20 authors, this book covers a wide range of topics to do with narrative in medicine. It includes a wealth of real examples of patients narratives and addresses theoretical and practical issues including the use of narrative as a therapeutic tool, teaching narrative to students, philosophical issues, narrative in legal and ethical decisions, narrative in nursing, and the narrative medical record.

The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine articulates the ideas, methods, and practices of narrative medicine. Written by the originators of the field, this book provides the authoritative starting place for any clinicians or scholars committed to learning of and eventually teaching or practicing narrative medicine.

This book assembles many of the foremost writers and clinicians in the field of team-based primary care to share their own relational reflections. It features narratives from fields such as integrated behavioral health, integrated primary care, primary care behavioral health, medical family therapy, health psychology, primary care psychology, and clinical social work. The key focus of the chapters are the relationships that are formed during primary care delivery. The book is organized into six core chapters: Family of Origin, Teachers and Mentors, Our Patients and Ourselves, Colleagues and Collaborators, Clinician as Patient, and Death and Loss. Each chapter contains a variety of styles and formats of narrative medicine, including personal reflections, story-telling, and poetry. Connections in the Clinic will be of interest to a wide audience of clinicians and educators dedicated to a reflective or story-telling approach to healing.

Narrative medicine emerged in response to a commodified health care system that places corporate and bureaucratic concerns over the needs of the patient. This book provides an introduction to the principles of narrative medicine and guidance for implementing narrative methods.

This book presents case-based descriptions of models for the inclusive, multispecialty and multidisciplinary clinical care of complex cases. Cases range from primary care patients with complex systemic medical and psychiatric comorbidity, to those requiring specialty care, to those with potentially terminal illnesses. While each category and case has its unique requirements often necessitating different models of care, the commonalities in approaching complex clinical situations is underscored. Extended case narratives written by the treating physicians, summarizing both the course of clinical care and physicians' reflections on the challenges of managing complex patients, comprise the bulk of the book. Five additional chapters on systems issues associated with care of complex patients, together with a chapter on end of life considerations, a narrative analysis of the physicians reflections about complex patients, and a concluding chapter are prominently included to anchor the case narratives. Written by experts in the field, these descriptions form unique models for assessing and treating complex cases. Integrated Care for Complex Patients is a useful guide for all health practitioners and health administrators who are responsible for clinically complex cases, including physicians in primary care and psychiatry, physician assistants and nurse practitioners, and psychologists.