Narrative Medicine

A story is like water that you heat for your bath. It takes messages between the fire and your skin. It lets them meet, and it cleans you! — Jalal al-Din Rumi

As a clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and a writer, I have experienced the power of stories in healing, for this reason I have created this space for us to explore Narrative Medicine in the Social Work profession as well as other caring professions. In 2007, I took the first Narrative Medicine course with creator Dr. Rita Charon at Columbia University during my Revson Fellowship Year. Since then, I was able to create a healing and writing group at Lehman College when I was the Director of the Counseling Center. That same year, I published my first collection of stories, My Daughter’s Eyes and Other Stories. Presently, I am working on a memoir on caring for my husband during the last year of his life when he was living with a diagnosis of Stage IV Colon Cancer.

In narrative medicine we read literature and we write and we examine our role as caring professionals. Dr. Sayantani DasGupta notes that Narrative Medicine honors the central role of story in healthcare, and that mostly we learn to listen to our patients stories of illness, and recognize our own personal journey in the process of listening. Narrative medicine offers us an opportunity to honor and provide compassionate, respectful, empathic and nurturing care.

This space is created for you, social workers and other caring professionals to explore literature, honor the role of story in our caregiving profession and write our own. I hope that this compassionate space can provide a foundation for your own growth and personal healing, as well as empowerment through the sharing and receiving of stories. You are welcome to come and listen, and you are invited to write and share.