Narrative Palliative Care: A Method for Building Empathy

Abstract

We make meaning of illness, suffering, and death through narrative, by telling a story. In this article, the authors explore narrative and palliative care: how, at the end of life, narratives of patients, caregivers, and clinicians serve to connect to those still living, and how through each telling and listening, we honor and validate the experience of suffering. A discussion of narrative competence and the skills of attention, representation, and affiliation is followed by an outline of the format for a narrative medicine workshop and a detailed analysis of an experiential exercise in close reading and reflective writing.

KEYWORDS:

• close reading
• end of life
• narrative humility
• narrative medicine
• palliative care
• reflective writing

Notes

Narrative Medicine workshops are, however, often conducted at conferences with large audiences. Variations of the close reading and reflective writing exercises described here are possible even in large groups, but the formation of the small group community that depends on connection and a safe space needs a small group experience.

A workshop might begin with a writing prompt, then shift to some close reading and back to more writing. Nothing is fixed in stone with the sequence of close reading and writing. It depends on the particular group needs and the desire of the facilitators to work in a particular order.