The life-changing magic of tidying up, between storytelling and Narrative Medicine

Vladimir Kush - Diary of Discoveries
Vladimir Kush – Diary of Discoveries

The Japanese writer Marie Kondo wrote a book which became best-seller, “The life-changing magic of tidying up”. I read it, and I personally appreciated it, even without being able to complete all the suggestions. But it was useful: essentially, we have to inspect room by room, drawer by drawer, box by box to understand if what is contained is necessary or not, and – if useless – it must be thrown away or given to some charity. Kondo suggests to delete from the phone book the names of long-time acquaintances, but not the important ones, rather registered contacts or people who now are boring us – even if they have given us pleasure in the past. Delete those numbers. I did it, after a brief meditative funeral, murmuring “I let you go”.

For two months I threw away, eliminated: in order to do what? Space to the new that was preponderantly entering, but not breathing enough. This was the easiest part: it’s not merely a New Year procedure, it’s more complex. You have to re-order: to make space to put things in order, to catalog them according to colors, use, feeling, reason. In short, Kondo invites us to clarify in order to come out from confusion.

Why do I associate storytelling and Narrative Medicine to Marie Kondo? Because the more I participate to conventions and conferences, and I read press and literature, the more I feel the need to put order… Between storytelling and Narrative Medicine. When I explain that I deal with Narrative Medicine – the collection of narratives of patients, their families, doctors and GPs – a great confusion emerges: for many people, “both are stories”.

And it’s true, both are stories. So, let’s apply what Kondo tells us, and let’s try to put some order: the question is how these stories are built, where they are collected, and who writes or tells them.

In Narrative Medicine:

  • Narratives are true, and are collected in daily clinical practice on all pathologies, without distinction between more and less impressive.
  • Narrative are often the result of the interaction between patients and healthcare professionals.
  • Collected narratives are not a well-written literary expedient for readers and listeners, but they are necessary to comprehend and take care of patients in their text and context.
  • Carers’ narratives about their clinical cases likewise are real, without literary devices, and are reflections to understand more deeply what writing about a case allows, in order to take care of the patient as good as possible.

This is Narrative Medicine, in short: it considers few people involved, it is made by dialogues, and it is a dense reality.

In storytelling:

  • Stories are often inspired by true experiences, but are factitious.
  • Stories are written by a single narrator, and are generally oriented to a large public.
  • Stories are not collected in clinical practice, but they belong more to free time and performance.
  • Medical Humanities employ stories in film, tragedies, comedies, books, and artworks concerning existential questions about health and illness.
  • Essentially, the narrator is a “storyteller” entertaining a large public.

The border is subtle: medical storytelling would not exist without Narrative Medicine. But I would like to put order in this sequence: first Narrative Medicine comes, a daily practice which is based on the intersubjectivity of carer and patient, on the interdependence, or on the encounter. Then storytelling comes, which is extraordinarily emotional, and it’s the literary or film produced by a writer or a director after having read and listened to what happened to a patient.

It may be a forced analogy, but I abandon medicine to pass to philosophy: narrative through dialogue was what Socrates was practicing in the streets of Athens when he was meeting people (they were not sick, but the principle is very similar), and storytelling was what Plato gave us with extraordinary art as writer, beyond as philosopher. Socrates was a “narrator”, Plato was a “storyteller”.

You can choose which philosopher you like the most, or understand if you are employing both: maybe, you can make more order on the street you are traveling. Socrates, through maieutics, was building a new reality – an alliance – with people he was talking to, and both were coming home with an increased awareness, more lightness and happiness. Plato was writing for posterity, for the Academy, searching for a large public.

It is good to make order, not only in phone books, wardrobes, books, photos, and maybe on social networks, but also in definitions and names, an aspect neglected by Marie Kondo. Everyone is free to write as he/she wants, for him/herself or for the “performance”, or in a hybrid way.

Maybe I’m Linnean as Kondo, but after having made order, we breath cleaner air. Let’s leave storytelling to organize great educational and emotional impact stories for condom, safe driving and non-smoking campaigns. Let’s give to Narrative Medicine the task to help physicians, nurses and all healthcare professionals in taking care of patients with HIV, elders with COPD, and people with car crash trauma.

Maria Giulia Marini

Epidemiologist and counselor in transactional analysis, thirty years of professional life in health care. I have a classic humanistic background, including the knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin, which opened me to study languages and arts, becoming an Art Coach. I followed afterward scientific academic studies, in clinical pharmacology with an academic specialization in Epidemiology (University of Milan and Pavia). Past international experiences at the Harvard Medical School and in a pharma company at Mainz in Germany. Currently Director of Innovation in the Health Care Area of Fondazione ISTUD a center for educational and social and health care research. I'm serving as president of EUNAMES- European Narrative Medicine Society, on the board of Italian Society of Narrative Medicine, a tenured professor of Narrative Medicine at La Sapienza, Roma, and teaching narrative medicine in other universities and institutions at a national and international level. In 2016 I was a referee for the World Health Organization- Europen for “Narrative Method of Research in Public Health.” Writer of the books; “Narrative medicine: Bridging the gap between Evidence-Based care and Medical Humanities,” and "Languages of care in Narrative Medicine" edited with Springer, and since 2021 main editor for Springer of the new series "New Paradigms in Health Care."

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