What metaphor do you use?

15 years 9 months ago #17533 by Gene Beane
Replied by Gene Beane on topic What metaphor do you use?
Julie,
Good article,,, ATTITUDE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE...Ginger

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15 years 9 months ago #17504 by momof4
Replied by momof4 on topic What metaphor do you use?
Julie,

That is so true...great article Julie....

Karen

Caregiver for my Wonderful Husband Angelo, who has Metastatic Bladder Cancer.

Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain.

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15 years 9 months ago #17496 by Julie
What metaphor do you use? was created by Julie
There is an article in Sunday's New York Times titled "When Thumbs Up Is No Comfort." This link does not require registration <www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/health/01stoical.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all>

"That optimism reassures anxious relatives, the public and doctors, regardless of whether it accurately reflects the patient’s emotional state. “If Ted Kennedy wanted to stick up his middle finger,” Dr. Lerner added, “that would be the more appropriate finger, but he’s doing what he is supposed to.”

Whether such images inspire patients, or reinforce unrealistic expectations that they, too, should maintain a game face, remains an open question, say doctors, social workers, family members and patients themselves."

“If we fail to meet patients where their grief has taken them, we have sequestered them off,” he added. “Then patients and families talk about platitudes rather than what they’re really thinking.”

“Metaphors don’t just describe reality, they create reality,” he said. “You think you have to fight this war, and people expect you to fight.” But many patients must balance arduous, often ineffective therapy with quality-of-life issues. The war metaphor, he said, places them in retreat, or as losing a battle, when, in fact, they may have made peace with their decisions.

To describe a patient’s process through illness, he prefers the more richly ambiguous metaphor of a journey: its byways, crossroads, U-turns; its changing destinations; its absence of win, lose or fail.

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