Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: the Narrative Structure of Experience

Cheryl Mattingly

Cambridge University Press, £14.95, pp 192

ISBN 0 521 63004 5

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In this book anthropologist Cheryl Mattingly analyses communication by occupational therapists treating life altering illnesses such as spinal cord injuries. Her opening statement admits that the book gave her trouble as her thoughts developed over a decade. She also wondered how much of her personal opinions and feelings should be openly expressed, and her analysis ultimately reflects the interaction between patients, therapists, and observer.

The book, which …