REHPA inviterer til workshop om brug af narrativer med professor Arthur Frank

Workshop og invitation er på engelsk – Download invitation

Introduction

What is called reality depends on narratives, because people make sense of the world through narratives. Thus, the phenomenon of narrative is omnipresent, the term narrative referring to both meta-narratives and the theoretical and analytical concept of story telling.

The democratization of Western societies and welfare systems from the 1960’s led to an acknowledgement of citizens’ – including the diseased – right to self-determination and to having their voices heard on issues concerning their own health and bodies. This gave rise to societal efforts towards and research in the humanization of health care, including explorations of patients’ and relatives’ perspectives on health and illness. Since then, there has been a major development in the use of qualitative methods, especially regarding observations and interviews. The concept of narratives and story-telling are inscribed in this development.
Arthur Frank’s books have been a great inspiration to many working with explorations of illness perspectives, the understanding of narratives and their meaning as well as narrative analysis and meta-narratives.

Arthur Frank is Canadian, professor emeritus of sociology at University of Calgary in Canada and visiting professor at VID Specialized University in Norway. In his books, Frank draws on his own experiences as a patient and relative. Frank has visited Denmark on several occasions, and this time he will be visiting REHPA, The Danish Knowledge Centre for Rehabilitation and Palliative Care in Copenhagen, University of Southern Denmark in Odense and Vejle Hospital
in Vejle. At REHPA we are happy and proud to announce that Frank on 3 December will be participating in a workshop focusing on the use of narratives in the work with people with lifethreatening illness.

In Denmark the use of narratives in health practice and research involves different theoretical and methodological directions: narrative health research, narrative medicine, narrative practice, life stories, dignity therapy and the S-approach, to name some.

THE PURPOSE OF THE WORKSHOP is to gain more knowledge on, reflect upon, and discuss the use of narratives in social and health related efforts to help people with life-threatening illness: What is the purpose of using patients’, relatives’ and maybe even health professionals’ narratives in the development of practice? What are the benefits and limitations? How should experiences be examined?

THE TARGET GROUP is professionals and researchers working with narratives in relation to people with life-threatening illness and the health care system.

Participation fee

is 800 DKK. The workshop has 25 seats. In order to enroll, applicants need to be involved in practice and/or research as before mentioned. At registration, applicants need to send an abstract that briefly describes the activity/activities of relevance (kind of activity, time-schedule, background, purpose, methods, results/conclusion – if any yet) and 1-3 questions of particular interest – based on applicants’ own work or in general – to be discussed at the workshop. Abstracts and questions will influence the final planning of the workshop.

Please register at

http://webpay.sdu.dk/system/20181203 and e-mail your abstract to Mia.Jess@rsyd.dk no later than November 18th. A waiting list will be established if there are more than 25 applicants.

Schedule

• 09:30 Arrival – tea, coffee and bread
• 10:00 Welcome and introduction by Helle Timm, professor and research leader, REHPA
• 10:10 Professor Arthur Frank, University of Calgary, Canada: Stories of illness and suffering
  – a short story of a life’s work
• 10:50 Discussions on practice, research and challenges brought up in your e-mails
• 12:00 Lunch – a sandwich
• 12:30 Discussions on practice, research and challenges brought up in the former
• 14:00 Workshop evaluation and future collaboration(s) (in Danish, without Arthur Frank)
• 15:00 End