Dear All,

These are reflections on writing as therapy, Tom comments and Paul's
Comments. My use of recent events is not intended to be offensive and I hope
that I have not caused any offence.
Paul concludes:
A proposition must be true, the person must believe that it is true and must
be able to justify that belief.

This advice is from Scientific American and relates to the People's
reasonable heightened anxiety following the 11th September and the
subsequent anxieties about anthrax. The events are true, too believable and
it is possible to justify the emotional adjustment necessary.

There are several conscious responses to a stressful event (e.g. avoidance,
positive reappraisal, acute anxiety states and depression). I find the
advice to be rational, but unlikely to achieve its objective. I see positive
reappraisal as the key to adjustment. The war against terrorism is
justifiable and perhaps a necessary process for the psychological adjustment
for the victims (perhaps we are all of us victims!). We seek to write a
narrative which is compatible with a positive selfhood. Selfhood is not our
contained consciousness, but the product of our inner world view (contained
consciousness) and the feed back we receive through dialogue with
others(selfhood).

So what has this to do with the transfiguration of water into chocolate? The
narrative is perceived as retrospective. The stories are transcribed into
the researchers scaffolding. I would suggest we should be writing stories
here and now. Conferencing might allow the People to write the stories which
might give them a sense of purpose and empowerment. For me the challenge is
not one of recording dialogue, but enabling dialogue. The studies might be
prospective and thereby the transcribers can record events and their
perception of events. I suspect play to be therapeutic. So is there any
evidence that encouraging people to write prospective fictional narratives
facilitates a healthy emotional adjustment?

Yours sincerely,

Nigel---- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Robinson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: fact vs fictional narratives


> For me, the key part of Tom's mail is this:
>
> If there really is no point in trying to distinguish 'fact' from
'fiction',
> then there would be no point in distinguishing 'verbatim quotes' from
> 'imaginative inventions'....
>
> The point that I wish to make is that verbatim transcription (if done by a
> human) is inevitably an interpretation. However well intentioned and
however
> faithful the transcriber thinks s/he is being to the original, the
> transcription is a constructed narrative account. There is bound to be a
> difference between the events transcribed and the transcriber's perception
> of them.
>
> At this level I think that everything is fiction, and the idea that there
is
> objectivity or non-fiction (at this level) is a conceit.
>
> On the other hand, at a wider scale, there are ways of verifying events
> using external evidence.
> I'm reminded of some epistemology here: the tripartite account (Dancy,
> 1985). This states that for a person to know a particular proposition, the
> proposition must be true, the person must believe that it is true and must
> be able to justify that belief.
>
> I think that it is helpful to recognise which of these 3 parts are
relevant
> to the present discussion.
>
> I have deliberately not responded to Tom's emotive examples: they could
> cloud the issue, possibly.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Robinson
> General Practitioner, Scarborough
> GP Consultant Sowerby Centre, Newcastle
> Hon. Senior Clinical Lecturer, Leeds
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Researching and evaluating the use of narrative in health and
related
> fields [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Tom
> Wengraf
> Sent: 16 November 2001 18:40
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: fact vs fictional narratives
>
> Trish wrote:
>
> >Here's an offering from one of my students:
> >
> >
> >"Water is to chocolate like story is to qualitative
> >research" by Nancie Burns -Mccoy can be found at
> >http://www.wmc.edu/academics/library/pub/jcp/issueI-2/burns-mccoy.html
> >
> >She argues that the methodologies that are used
> >in qualitative research to "stabilise stories" (i.e. to
> >demonstrate validity) and to separate "non-fiction" from
> >"fiction" (which she considers to be a false
> >dichotomy) actually silence narrative .She feels that the
> >methodologies employed really tell their own separate story
> >and quotes someone who feels that audience approval of
> >research may reflect how the story told fits with cultural
> >myths and values.
> >
> >Trisha Greenhalgh
>
>
> My reaction is hostile -- based on the belief that, once we deny the
> attempt to distinguish   between non-fictional and fictional accounts of
> reality,  we instantly regress in cultural terms to pre-scientific states
> of culture.
>
> Some examples:
>
> There is a story that the Nazi regime killed 6 million Jews and 6 million
> non-Jews during their reign first in Germany and then in Europe. There is
> another story which asks 'Did 6 million Jews really die?" and attempts to
> doubt the reality of the Holocaust. There is another (meta) story which
> asks us not to worry which is true (since there is no distinction to be
> drawn at least in some English Departments between 'non-fiction' and
> 'fiction').
>
> There is a story that 6,000 American citizens died in the attack on the
> Pentagon and the World trade Centre; another story that only 3,000 died.
> There is a story that over a million Afghans will die this winter from
cold
> and starvation as a result of the US attack on Afghanistan, and that, as
> somebody said about the death of 500,000 Iraqui children from the embargo,
> "it is a price worth (them) paying"..
>
> There is a story that a child needs to know whether they were or were not
> abused by their parent. There is another story that it doesn't matter
> whether they were or they weren't.....
>
> Coming from history and sociology, rather than literature, the perpetual
> struggle to distinguish true stories from less truthful ones, real medical
> conditions from plausible ones, seems crucial.
>
> It is interesting to note that in Nancie Burns-McCoy's text cited by Trish
> -- which makes for a very creative read -- she points out that direct
> quotations from the original words spoken by her interviewee, Alicia, are
> in italics to distinguish them from her own inventive play around it;
> similarly, in respect of quotes from Equivel's novel, these are also
> italicised to perform the same function.
>
> If there really is no point in trying to distinguish 'fact' from
'fiction',
> then there would be no point in distinguishing 'verbatim quotes' from
> 'imaginative inventions'....... and the powerful of this world who hate
> investigative journalism and uncompromising social research, those who
have
> a powerful control over the media and the stories they 'spin' to hide what
> a factual account would show, would be very relieved. Burns-McCoy's own
> practice shows her proper respect for  distinguishing between 'facts' and
> 'inventions'.
>
> Those quite unconcerned for human suffering and/or determined to hide
their
> collusion with the forces that make for unnecessary suffering can only
gain
> from the denial that, for research as opposed to imaginative literature,
> the attempt to distinguish between the 'factual' and the 'fictional'
> components of people's stories about reality -- and the attempt to
> understand why certain factualities are omitted or denied in certain
> accounts -- is crucial.
>
> Do we really wish to allow the 'sovereignty of some powerful participants'
> voices' to silence the participants (like dead Jews in the Holocaust, dead
> Palestinians after Sharon's massacres, dead patients after Dr Harold
> Shipman's serial killings) who are less able to speak, or to speak
> attractively for themselves?
>
> The whole system of national and international justice -- faulty as it is
> -- is an attempt to distinguish the 'least fictional accounts' from the
> others.......
>
> An attempt to understand the fact-based and fact-denying fictions that
> patients, clients, and we ourselves weave around our practices, an attempt
> to understand the roles of narratives in medicine, in historical
> oppression, and human suffering, depends on trying to come to a 'truer
> understanding'.... not in denying factual realities. In psychotherapy, and
> elsewhere, people can suffer from untrue stories.... and denying the
> distinction of truth and falsity is radically disempowering to individuals
> and collectives.
>
> What disease are we REALLY suffering from?
>
>
>
>
>  Details of my long-awaited (by me, at least!) and now  recently
published
> textbook on
>
>          'Qualitative Research Interviewing: biographic narrative and
> semi-structured method'
>                                                        are on
>                 <http://www.sagepub.co.uk/shopping/Detail.asp?id=4813>
>
>
> Tom Wengraf
> 24a Princes Avenue
> Muswell Hill
> London N10 3LR
> UK
>
> (44)/
> (0)
> 20  8883 9297
> 20  8444-4322