Art, narrative, and healing

• Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival
• How putting events into a story may aid the healing process
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Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival (a reading list)

Partially sighted readers who want to listen to a title in audio should contact the National Library Service (NLS), which is part of the Library of Congress, or their state Library for the Blind.

• Alden, Paulette Bates. Crossing the Moon: A Journey Through Infertility.
• Angelou, Maya. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (childhood memories of growing up black when prejudice was intense)
• Ansay, A. Manette. Limbo: A Memoir (an undiagnosed muscle disorder cuts short her career as a concert pianist)
• Ascher, Barbara Lazear. Landscape Without Gravity (about her brother's death from AIDS).
• Barron, Judy and Sean. There’s a Boy in Here (life with autism, from both mother’s and son’s viewpoint)
• Bauby, Jean-Dominique. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death (immobilized by a stroke, the narrator discovers the life of the unfettered imagination). Also a major movie.
• Beauvoir, Simone de. A Very Easy Death (about the death of her mother)
• Bernstein,Jane. Loving Rachel (about life with a blind daughter)
• Black, Kathryn. In the Shadow of Polio: A Personal and Social History (a memoir of Black's childhood experience of a mother in an iron lung, wrapped in the larger story of the search for a cure)
• Bragg, Bernard. Lessons in Laughter: The Autobiography of a Deaf Actor
• Breslin, Jimmy. I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me (on surviving a brain aneurysm).
• Brodkey, Harold. This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death (the story of his confrontation with AIDS)
• Brookes, Tim. Catching My Breath: An Asthmatic Explores His Illness
• Broyard, Anatole. Intoxicated by My Illness (critical illness, in his case from cancer, as a spiritual journey)
• Casey, Nell, ed. Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression
• Casey, Nell, ed. An Uncertain Inheritance: Writers on Caring for Family (and some writers on being cared for). A wonderful book, highly recommended for caregivers.
• Cohen, Richard M. Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness, a Reluctant Memoir (living with multiple sclerosis and later colon cancer, and how his illness affected his wife, Meredith Vieira, and their three children)
• Cousins, Norman. Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient (a classic take on how attitude, and especially laughter, affects health outcomes)
• DasGupta, Sayantani and Marsha Hurst, eds. Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies
• DeBaggio, Thomas. Losing My Mind: An Intimate Look at Life with Alzheimer’s (the early memories and the daily struggle of a man coming to terms with a progressively debilitating illness)
• DeVita, Elizabeth. The Empty Room: Surviving the loss of a brother or sister at any age (partly a memoir of surviving the loss of her brother Teddy to aplastic anemia)
• Dew, Robert Forman. The Family Heart: A Memoir of When Our Son Came Out
• Dubus, Andre. Meditations from a Movable Chair and the earlier collection of essays Broken Vessels (both written after a 1986 highway accident left him largely confined to a wheelchair, and only some essays deal with his response to the accident and his view of life from a wheelchair)
• Finger, Anne. Past Due: A Story of Disability, Pregnancy, and Birth
• Fishman, Steve. A Bomb in the Brain: A Heroic Tale of Science, Surgery, and Survival (about surviving an aneurysm)
• Frank, Arthur W. At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness (explores what illness can teach us about life, drawing on his experience having a heart attack and cancer)
• Franzen, Jonathon, My Father's Brain (abstract of New Yorker story about his father and Alzheimer's disease, September 10, 2001)
• Fries, Kenny, Body, Remember (born with incompletely formed legs, a congenital birth defect, Fries explores what it's like to be different)
• Funderburg, Lise. Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home (a compelling and beautifully written memoir by a grown daughter—a white-looking mixed-race girl raised in an integrated Philadelphia neighborhood—who gets to know her dying father in a string of pilgrimages to his boyhood hometown in rural Georgia)
• Galli, Richard. Rescuing Jeffrey (an account of the gut-wrenching decisions Jeffrey’s parents face in the ten days after an accident leaves him paralyzed from the neck down)
• Gilbert, Sandra. Wrongful Death: A Medical Tragedy (about the death of her husband after entering the hospital for routine prostate surgery)
• Gordon, Barbara. I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can (on addiction to prescription drugs)
• Gordon, Mary. Circling My Mother (Gordon's memoir of her Irish Catholic mother, deformed by polio, eventually suffering dementia—and of their complex mother-daughter relationship)
• Grandin, Temple. Thinking in Pictures (an adult with autism explains how it feels to her, and how she works as an expert in her field)
• Grealy, Lucy. Autobiography of a Face (about growing up with Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer that severely disfigured her face)
• Greene, Valerie. Conquering Stroke: How I Fought My Way Back and How You Can Too
• Hammer, Signe. By Her Own Hand: Memoirs of a Suicide's Daughter
• Handler, Evan. Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors (recounting with grim humor his battle with leukemia and his hellish journey through the land of the sick)
• Hill, Susan. Family (about the death of a premature child)
• Hillenbrand, Laura. A Sudden Illness—How My Life Changed (from The New Yorker--The impact of chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS, on the author of the bestselling book, Seabiscuit)
• Hockenberry, John. Moving Violations: Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence
• Hoffman,Richard. Half the House (about child abuse)
• Holzemer, Liz. Curveball: When Life Throws You a Brain Tumor (in her case, a baseball-sized meningioma--and remember, a brain tumor is different from brain cancer)
• Hood, Ann. Do Not Go Gentle: The Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time (her search for a miraculous cure for her father's inoperable lung cancer)
• Hull, John. Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness (from sight problems at 13, gradually becoming blind)
• Israeloff, Roberta. In Confidence: Four Years of Therapy
• Jamison, Kay Redfield. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. A classic memoir about living with manic depression (including its positive aspects).
• Jezer, Marty. Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words
• Johnson, Fenton. Geography of the Heart (about the death of a gay partner)
• Kamenentz, Rodger. Terra Infirma (a searing recollection of his mother's life and her death from cancer, his mother "yo-yoing between smothering affection and a fierce anger")
• Karr, Mary. The Liar's Club (about growing up with a mentally ill mother in a dysfunctional family)
• Kaysen,Susanna. Girl, Interrupted (a young girl's experiences with mental illness)
• Kincaid, Jamaica. My Brother (account of her younger brother's death from AIDS)
• Kingsley, Jason, and Mitchell Levitz. Count Us In: Growing Up with Down Syndrome
• Kleege, Georgina. Sight Unseen (marginally sighted and legally blind at 11 from macular degeneration, Kleege explores the meaning and implications of blindness and sightedness, reminding us that only a fraction of blind people see nothing at all)
• Kupfer, Fern. Before and After Zachariah (about a brain-damaged child)
• Kusz, Natalie. Road Song (growing up in Alaska, being mauled by a sled-dog, undergoing reconstructive surgery)
• Kuusisto, Stephen. Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening (in this sequel to Planet of the Blind, the author learns to live by ear)
• Kuusisto, Stephen. Planet of the Blind (blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other, at his mother’s urging he feigns sightedness until coming to terms with his condition)
• Lachenmeyer, Nathaniel. The Outsider: A Journey into My Father's Struggle with Madness (in which the author tries to reconstruct his father's downward spiral from a promising career as a sociology professor to his death as a schizophrenic vagrant, eluding police)
• Lang, Jim. Learning Sickness: A Year with Crohn's Disease
• Latus, Janine. If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
• Lear, Martha Weinman. Heart-Sounds: The Story of Love and Loss (heart disease)
• Lewis, Mindy. Life Inside (diagnosed as schizophrenic at 15, kept in a psychiatric hospital till 18, recovering for decades, believing she was never schizophrenic)
• Lord, Audre. The Cancer Journals (explores her breast cancer and mastectomy)
• Madoff, Roger. Leukemia for Chickens
• Mairs, Nancy. Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled (wheelchair-bound from advancing multiple sclerosis, she offers "a Baedeker for a country to which no one travels willingly"). Check out also Carnal Acts , and Remembering the Bone House
• Maurice, Catherine. Let Me Hear Your Voice: A Family's Triumph Over Autism
• McDonnell, Jane Taylor. News from the Border: A Mother's Memoir of Her Autistic Son
• McKee, Steve. My Father’s Heart: A Son’s Journey (a tender memoir about suburban life in York, PA and Buffalo, NY, in the 1960s -- in every sense a “family history,” shedding light on heart disease, especially as inherited in families). Check out Steve McKee’s blog , too.
• McLean, Richard. Recovered, Not Cured: A Journey Through Schizophrenia (a brief, readable memoir by a gay Australian artist whose drawings vividly illustrate the story he tells about his life and mind with schizophrenia)
• Monette, Paul. Borrowed Time, Becoming a Man, and Last Watch of the Night (a gay man battles AIDS)
• Morrison, Blake. When Did You Last See Your Father?: A Son's Memoir of Love and Loss
• Neugeboren, Jay. Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival: A Memoir (his brother's 30-year struggle with mental illness)
• Nyala, Hannah. Point Last Seen (fleeing an abusive marriage)
• Olson, Rosanne. This Is Who I Am: Our Beauty in All Our Shapes and Sizes (photos of women with all kinds of bodies)
• Park, Clara Claiborne. The Siege: The First Eight Years of an Autistic Child's Life (by the mother)
• Patchett, Ann. Truth and Beauty: A Friendship (about her strange relationship with Lucy Grealy
• Phillips, Jane. The Magic Daughter: A Memoir of Living with Multiple Personality Disorder
• Robinson, Jill. Past Forgetting: My Memory Lost and Found (a compelling account of severe memory loss as the result of a seizure, by a fine novelist who grew up in Hollywood , as daughter of writer and film executive Dore Schary)
• Robison, John Elder. Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s (the well-told story of life as a technologically gifted savant with high-functioning autism, with the added twist of an unusual perspective on his brother, who, as Augusten Burroughs, wrote Running with Scissors--apparently the nutty family psychiatrist was no exaggeration)
• Rothenberg, Laura. Breathing for a Living (making the most of life with cystic fibrosis that takes her life at 22)
• Saks, Elyn. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (a fascinating memoir of the internal chaos and external unfairness that have made a life with schizophrenia so difficult for this professor of law and psychiatry, and of the talk therapy—indeed, psychoanalysis—she felt was as important as medication in helping her live a high-functioning life as a professor of law and psychiatry)
• Sarton, May. After the Stroke (the poet’s journal about recovering from a mild stroke when she is in her seventies)
• Scheff, David. Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction (chronicling a precocious teenager's spiral downward from abuse of mind- and mood-altering drugs to meth addiction)x
• Scheff, Nic. Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines (the son's story, companion book to Beautiful Boy)
• Schreber, Daniel Paul. Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (memoirs of madness, as recalled a century ago during confinement In a German mental asylum)
• Shawn, Allen. Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life -- part memoir, part explanation, a beautifully written and fascinating account of Shawn's own anxiety and agoraphobia, and a fine summary of what is known about how we form and can learn to manage anxiety an­d phobias. Shawn is son of the New Yorker editor (who managed his fears by becoming boss and therefore controlling his environment) and brother of Wallace Shawn, the actor.­
• Shulman, Alix Kates. To Love What Is: A Marriage Transformed (love story of a husband and wife facing his traumatic brain injury and her transformation into caregiver)
• Sienkiewicz-Mercer, Ruth and Steven B. Kaplan. I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes. (Encephalitis at 5 weeks left Ruth, a healthy baby, paralyzed and unable to speak normally. Diagnosed an imbecile at 5 years, she was eventually institutionalized and severely mistreated at a school for the mentally and physically disabled until a staff turnover brought her help, including a method for communicating.)
• Skloot, Floyd. The Night-Side: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the Illness Experience (an account of how this mysterious and life-altering illness stuck overnight, dramatically changing Skloot’s life, and how he dealt with it)
• Spradley, Thomas S. and James P. Deaf Like Me (parents of a child born deaf as the result of an epidemic of German measles, waste years avoiding sign language before learning how to communicate with their child)
• Styron, William. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (on serious depression)
• Taylor, Jill Bolte. My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (a story that provides hope for the brain-injured, not just those who have had a stroke, as this young brain scientist did)­
• Taylor, Nick. A Necessary End (about death of parents)
• Vincent, Eleanor. Swimming with Maya: A Mother's Story (how the daughter's fall from a horse ended in organ donations--transforming a mother's grief)
• Walker, Lou Ann. A Loss for Words: The Story of Deafness in a Family (what it was like growing up hearing as the oldest child of deaf parents)
• Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle (growing up in a decidedly eccentric, often homeless, family)
• Waxman, Robert and Linda. Losing Jonathan (losing a beloved child to drugs)
• Wexler, Alice. Mapping Fate: A Memoir of Family, Risk, and Genetic Research (on Huntington's Disease)
• Wiesel, Elie. Night (powerful account of surviving the nightmare world of the Nazi death camps)
• Wilensky, Amy S. Passing for Normal (a moving account of life with a long-delayed diagnosis of Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder—and an “exploration of the larger themes of difference and the need to belong”)
• Willey, Liane Holliday. Pretending to Be Normal: Living with Asperger’s Syndrome (a mother’s account of her own and her daughter’s life with Asperger’s syndrome).
• Williams, Donna. Nobody Nowhere: The Extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic (after 25 years, the daughter of abusive parents begins to emerge from a hallucinatory world—a view of autism totally different from Temple Grandin’s)
• Williams, Marjorie. The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, and Fate (the last third is about her losing battle with cancer)
• Wittman, Juliet . Breast Cancer Journal: A Century of Petals
• Wolff, Geoffrey. The Duke of Deception: Memories of My Father (about his con-man father)
• Wolff, Tobias. This Boy's Life (about escaping from his stepfather's abuse). Geoffrey and Tobias are brothers.
• Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America (atypical depression and bouts with drugs)

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How putting events into a story may aid the healing process.

• Adventure in Chinatown, by Susie Silook
• Alzheimer's: Mementos help preserve memories
• Art for Recovery (UCSF)
• Auntie's Awakening (Tamara Jones story in Washington Post about how the pretzel queen's personal awakening led her to start Seven Women, Seven Weeks, Seven Stories)
• Bandaides and Blackboards (stories by kids and teens about growing up with medical problems--so you know how they coped)
• Creating a story of the self (from Storycatcher, by Christina Baldwin)
• Robert N. Butler reviews "life review". "Individuals who share their experiences [of life review] are more likely to feel increased self-esteem and be spared feelings of depression and isolation." (Aging Today)
• Morris Friedell, writing My Alzheimer's Struggle, written in the early stages of Alzheimer's. Friedell is prominently featured in The Forgetting, David Shenk's fine book about Alzheimer's.
• Narrative and Healing (Aron S. Wolf, MD), on why telling your story is good for your health. Check out the great links at the bottom of the site.
• Ongoing Psychological Growth with Aging: Autobiography and The Summing Up Phase by Gene D. Cohen. International Reminiscence and Life Review Conference 2007: Selected Conference Papers and Proceedings (November 15-16, 2007, San Francisco, CA), pp 33-39. Available free online or download here.
• Stories and healing by Arthur Frank
• Stories of healing and transformation (The Healing Bridge)
• StoryCorps
• Telling your life story
• Using stories for growing and healing by Christiane Brems
• Veterans History Project
• The Why of Memoir Writing (Martha Jewett's Blog, Write Your Memoir)
• Why write personal narratives? A doctor's experience, by Julie Connelly, MD (LitSite Alaska)
• World War I diary as memorial (U.S. Marine Henry K. Kindig)
• The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics by Arthur W. Frank

"Frank identifies three basic narratives of illness....Restitution narratives anticipate getting well again and give prominence to the technology of cure. In chaos narratives, illness seems to stretch on forever, with no respite or redeeming insights. Quest narratives are about finding that insight as illness is transformed into a means for the ill person to become someone new."~from amazon review of The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics by Arthur W. Frank

Narrative Medicine. A Narrative Medicine workshop is being held in Venice, Italy (Sept. 20-22, 2009). The idea: narrative training with stories of illness "enables practitioners to comprehend patients’ experiences and to understand what they themselves undergo as clinicians." If you're curious and can't make Venice, here is a pageful of links to podcasts of Narrative Medicine Rounds, lectures or readings presented by scholars, clinicians, or writers engaged in work at the interface between narrative and health care. Rounds are held on the first Wednesday of each month from 5 to 6:30 pm in the Columbia University Medical Center Faculty Club, followed by a reception. Rounds are free and open to the public. Elisabeth Pozzi-Thanner of Oral History Productions took and recommends an excellent intensive four-day workshop on Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. And here are some books on the subject: Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness by Rita Charon; Narrative Medicine: The Use of History and Story in the Healing Process by Lewis Mehl-Medrona author of Coyote Wisdom: Healing Power in Native American Stories ; Psychoanalysis and Narrative Medicine, ed. Peter L. Rudnytsky and Rita Charon. There are MANY more titles on the subject. As I learn more about them, I'll add more titles.

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My Words Are Gonna Linger: The Art of Personal History , ed. Paula Stallings Yost and Pat McNees, with a foreword by Rick Bragg (Personal History Press, $19.95). Read excerpts here. Read a review here.

"At last, a collection that shows the "why, what, and how" behind memoir as legacy. Spanning more than a century, these intriguing reflections of personal as well as global social and political history are told in the unique voice and viewpoint of each storyteller."
~ Susan Wittig Albert, author, Writing from Life, founder, Story Circle Network

“This anthology sings with Walt Whitman’s spirit of democracy, a celebration of our diversity. Each selection is a song of self; some have perfect pitch, some the waver of authenticity. All demonstrate the power of the word to salvage from the onrush of life, nuggets worth saving.”
~ Tristine Rainer, author of Your Life as Story and Writing the New Autobiography