Abstract
Narratives are important in human interactions as they are how we interact with each other and communicate our histories and experiences. In a speciality such as psychiatry this approach takes on an even more significant role. This book aims to explore the art of narrative therapy and what it means in practice.
The author is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist with experience working in various colleges and community mental health centres across America, specialising in the areas of student mental health and developing mother–daughter relationships. In this book she introduces and explains an approach to therapeutic interactions in psy-chiatry called ‘narrative psychiatry’. This is based on the premise that an individual experiences the world and events through stories they tell themselves. Dr Hamkins works with her patients to re-examine and re-appraise these stories of their lives to develop a more positive approach to life.
The two broad sections of the book allow the author to reveal the foundations of narrative psychiatry and show them in practice. Each chapter tackles a specific area of narrative psychiatry in a way that keeps the book immensely readable. A case example complements each chapter, where the reader can see Dr Hamkins’ narrative approach to psychiatry in action. She offers her own commentary on the transcribed consultations, explaining the significance of certain questions and their phrasing. Some chapters are further enhanced by reflections offered by the subjects who, themselves, have been the case examples. They were asked to read a draft of the chapter and then offer feedback on their experience of engaging with a practitioner of narrative therapy. This makes the book much more practical, as the responses of those who have been through the process make it much more down-to-earth and pragmatic.
Although such an approach is very helpful, accompanying these examples with research experience and studies would have strengthened the evidence further. The author passionately argues for the efficacy of narrative psychiatry, but it is only in the last pages that the reader finds that some studies were in progress at the time of writing so, sadly, no findings were available. Brief discussion of possible methodologies, outcomes and implications would still have been very welcome and could have been introduced much earlier in the book.
While the book is unlikely to transform the reader into an expert practitioner of narrative psychiatry, it does offer ideas and techniques that any healthcare professional can incorporate into their own therapeutic interactions. There is little doubt that in psychiatry patients will prefer that the clinician listens to their life story and experiences. Furthermore, it is an interesting and easy-to-read introduction to the area, suitable for those interested in perusing further training in a narrative approach (the author offers workshops on practising narrative psychiatry), written by an obviously experienced psychiatrist with expertise in the field of narrative psychiatry.