Psychoanalysis and Narrative Medicine

Peter L. Rudnytsky is Professor of English at the University of Florida and editor of the journal American Imago. Rita Charon is Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University and coeditor of the journal Literature and Medicine.

"This book is stunning." — Metapsychology"What is unique to this volume, as coeditor Peter Rudnytsky emphasizes in his excellent introduction, is the integration of psychoanalysis into the literature-medicine dyad." — New England Journal of Medicine"This brilliant volume takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the landscape of a new field—narrative medicine—using psychoanalysis as the lens through which to observe the terrain. The editors have gathered a hugely diverse group of authors who present the many different ways that doctors and patients and society communicate and fail to communicate about illness and disease. Psychoanalysis, philosophy, literature, sociology, history, as well as psychology, neuroscience, and medical experience and practice are all brought into the service of understanding this important new area of medical care." — Arnold M. Cooper, MD, Professor Emeritus in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College"These essays offer diverse but always fascinating perspectives on the interplay of mind, body, and culture in the complementary mysteries of disease and of the relationship between healer and sufferer." — Arthur W. Frank, author of The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPeter L. Rudnytsky    Part I Contextualizing Narrative Medicine 1. Where Does Narrative Medicine Come From? Drives, Diseases, Attention and the BodyRita Charon             2. Desire and Obesity: Dickens, Endocrinology, Pulmonary Medicine, and PsychoanalysisSander L. Gilman                3. Pinel and the PendulumRichard Lewis Holt4. Narrative Medicine and Negative CapabilityTerrence Holt                        Part II Psychoanalytic Interventions 5. "The Past Is a Foreign Country": Some Uses of Literature in the Psychoanalytic DialogueVera J. Camden6. It’s Really More Complicated Than You Imagine: Narratives of Real and Imagined TraumaBennett Simon7. Narrative and Feminine Empathy: James to KristevaJanet Sayers 8. The Fortunate Physician: Learning from Our PatientsFred L. GriffinPart III The Patient’s Voice 9. Learning How to TellLisa J. Schnell 10. Imagining ImmunityEd Cohen 11. A Perspective on the Role of Stories as a Mechanism of Meta-HealingKimberly R. Myers 12. The Discourse of Disease: Patient Writing at the "University of Tuberculosis"Jean S. Mason Part IV Acts of Reading 13. The Teaching CureJeffrey Berman 14. Reading, Listening, and Other Beleaguered Practices in General PsychiatryNeil Scheurich 15. Uncertain Truths: Resistance and Defiance in NarrativeSchuyler W. Henderson 16. Narrative and BeyondGeoffrey HartmanAfterword Material and Metaphor: Narrative Treatment for the Embodied SelfRita Charon Notes on ContributorsIndex