The Understanding of Others through Their Narratives

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Other Title
  • 「語り」による「他者理解」
  • カタリ ニ ヨル タシャ リカイ

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Because there may be limitations in the scientific method of discovering and treating patients' "problems," the narrative approach has become increasingly important. These limitations have been pointed out by scholars from various fields. Hermeneutic view point has it that clinical knowledge is mostly based on the doctor's assumption and differs greatly from the world in which the patients live their lives. What should those in the nursing profession choose as a means of understanding patients? There is a Social Constructionist view that understanding is obtained through "language." When the sick patient tells about the world in which he/she lives in certain words, he/she has decided not to tell in other words. Then the patient's world appears before us as he/she tells. The patient organizes his/her world through telling as well. After over three years of interviewing with Ms. K, who was stuck with her mal-treating mother, we verified what telling brought to her, and how it was connected with understanding herself. Listening to Ms. K's narrative was linked to understanding her world in which she lived her life. It also brought a certain order to her confused history. As a result, her regrettable past came to have possibility for the future, altering her mentality so much as to make it possible for her to say "I have done my best" and "I have been living so well."

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