This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 0003065109346964v1 57/5/1097    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Miller, E. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Miller, E. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Writing About Patients: What Clinical and Literary Writers Share

School of Liberal Arts, Saint Mary's College of California, emiller{at}stmarys-ca.edu, Instructor, University of California, Berkeley Extension

Anyone who seeks publication wants readers, but self-expression, self-assertion, and self-promotion have consequences, especially for those who draw on clinical material and who must honor publication standards of integrity and reliability, as well as ethical codes governing confidentiality, consent, disguise, and collaboration. This paper employs tools of literary analysis, principles of moral philosophy, and psychoanalytic theories about writing to show that writers of fiction and autobiography also struggle with these dilemmas. They worry about their responsibilities to the sources of their stories, and wonder if changing names and dates will prevent friends and family, whose lives get used as material, from feeling embarrassed, betrayed, or exploited. Because they understand that the composing process blurs boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and memory, self and other, they recognize that an author’s relationship with his or her subject (matter) can disable the capacity to recognize when self-interest has taken over a concern for the welfare of others. More important, literary authors are free to write about writing, and what they render transparent about primitive, unconscious processes suggests that what clinical writing has in common with fiction and autobiography should be included in efforts to update ethical standards and procedures regarding psychoanalytic publication.

This version was published on October 1, 2009

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Vol. 57, No. 5, 1097-1120 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0003065109346964


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?