Harter, L. M., Japp, P. M., & Beck, C. S. (Editors). (2005). Narratives, health, and healing: Communication theory, research, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-5031-7; xvii + 516 pages, $ 55.00 (paper back), $145.00 (cloth cover).
Whether their thoughts on narrative originated during readings of Kenneth Burke, Walter Fisher, or another scholar, countless communication scholars have recently attempted to understand the role of narrative in the development of our identities and the effects of others’ narratives on our behavior. Researchers from communication studies and the health sciences have extended this line of inquiry, in the wake of works of scholars such as Howard Brody and Arthur Frank.
The result is a burgeoning area of research that considers a multiplicity of questions. Harter, Japp, and Beck have compiled articles that address the individual, relational, public, and political implications of narrative, in addition to addressing theoretical issues that should quiet critics who view the narrative paradigm as either atheoretical or lacking in theoretical depth.
The first, shortest, and arguably most important of the book’s four sections discusses current theorizing about narrative as it relates to health and illness. Each chapter in this section acknowledges the problematic nature of generating narrative theory. In the second chapter, Austin Babrow, Kimberly Kline, and William Rawlins add to our understanding of narrative theory by considering its relevant intersections with Problematic Integration Theory.
The next section investigates personal narratives and public dialogues. Christina Beck explains the relationship between narrative and identity(ies) in her discussion of the rhetorical, relational, and collaborative nature of narratives. In the following chapter, on narrative constructions of age-related infertility, Lynn Harter and her co-authors simultaneously reveal the oppressive nature of dominant narratives and the opportunity to compose counter-narratives that can empower individuals to restore their individual identities. Phyllis and Debra Japp discuss the quandaries of narrating an invisible illness. Other chapters address contexts such as binge drinking and safe sex.
Section three examines organizational implications of health-related narratives. The editors’ inclusion of studies from a variety of viewpoints is both noteworthy and admirable. Numerous studies in this area focus exclusively on the perspective of the patient or provider; in contrast, this section values the views of laypersons, physicians, nurses, and observers/researchers.
The book’s final section provides several excellent reports on the personal and relational realities created when narrators make sense of health matters through stories. Barbara Sharf illustrates that selecting a surgeon – or selecting not to see a particular surgeon – requires a change in the story she wishes to frame about her experiences – and, more important, about herself. Dan O’Hair, Denise Scannell, and Sharlene Thompson write a chapter that bespeaks the empowering effects that emerge when cancer patients exercise the agency to re-create their identities (and those of their health care providers). Other chapters cover questions about the use of narrative to make sense of death and dying, bereavement, and the attendant psychosocial factors of illness.
Taken separately, each chapter is a solid contribution that could have stood alone as a journal article. Together, however, the whole exceeds the sum of its parts. The collection represents a substantial portion of the spectrum of contemporary research that connects the communication field’s rhetorical and critical traditions to important questions about health, illness, identity, and relationships. Consequently, this collection is an essential text for scholars of health, communication, and the intersections thereof.
