Authoring experience: the significance and performance of storytelling in Socratic dialogue with rehabilitating cancer patients

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

This article examines the storytelling aspect inphilosophizing with rehabilitating cancer patients in small Socratic dialogue groups (SDG). Recounting an experienceto illustrate a philosophical question chosen by the participantsis the traditional point of departure for the dialogicalexchange. However, narrating is much more than abeginning point or the skeletal framework of events and itdeserves more scholarly attention than hitherto given. Storytelling pervades the whole Socratic process and impactsthe conceptual analysis in a SDG. In this article weshow how the narrative aspect became a rich resource forthe compassionate bond between participants and how theirstories cultivated the abstract reflection in the group. Inaddition, the aim of the article is to reveal the differentlayers in the performance of storytelling, or of authoringexperience. By picking, poking and dissecting an experiencethrough a collaborative effort, most participants hadtheir initial experience existentially refined and the chosenconcept of which the experience served as an illustrationtransformed into a moral compass to be used in self-orientationpost cancer.
Original languageEnglish
JournalMedicine, Healthcare and Philosophy
Volume18
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)409-420
Number of pages12
ISSN1386-7423
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2015

    Research areas

  • Authoring experience, Experience as drama, Narrative re-envisioning, Performance of storytelling, Rehabilitating cancer patients, Socratic dialogue groups, Threefold authoring

ID: 143159518