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Telling a story, writing a narrative: terminology in health care
Author(s) -
Wiltshire John
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
nursing inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.66
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1440-1800
pISSN - 1320-7881
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1800.1995.tb00070.x
Subject(s) - narrative , terminology , enlightenment , narrative medicine , narrative inquiry , health care , sociology , focus (optics) , nursing research , epistemology , narrative criticism , order (exchange) , psychology , nursing , linguistics , medicine , philosophy , political science , law , physics , optics , finance , economics
Telling a story, writing a narrative: terminology in health care This paper examines the current use of the terms ‘story’, ‘narrative’ and ‘voice’ within health care. It argues that the focus on narrative forms is related to nursing's professional development of an alternative epistemology to science, and to nursing theorists' mistrust of ‘Enlightenment’ modes. However, in order for this project to be productively developed it is necessary to distinguish story from narrative: the former is an informal activity, the latter is meditative and theoretical. Both have dierapeutic dimensions.