Studying Health Through Stories

When we think of 'health', we often think of tests, medicines, and diagnoses, but it's important to remember that most doctor's visits begin with a story (e.g., 'What brings you here today?'). Dr. Estefan researches mental health, trauma, and self-injury by exploring participants' stories and his own. In the video, Dr. Estefan talks about his own experiences as part of the 'It Gets Better' project, and in the excerpts below we see stories from a participant, a fellow researcher, and Dr. Estefan himself. As you read, think about your own story and how it relates to the narratives you're reading about here. As a person and as a psychology researcher, how can you draw from the tradition of narrative inquiry in your life and work?

Joseph’s Story

“By the time I was 16 I knew I was gay. I moved away from home so that I could explore my sexuality. The biggest hurdle was kissing a man. It just didn’t feel normal for some reason. Once I got over the weirdness of it and the discomfort, then it felt normal, but it took time for me to break down the mysteries of homosexuality and become comfortable with it. When I was younger, I thought that maybe I was bisexual. I think like for many young guys it was a kind of compromise that wasn’t as bad as being gay. But I reached a stage where I just thought I am gay and I should learn to fucking deal with it. At that point I remember letting out a deep breath ... I had made my decision. But then I remember sucking it all back in again, because I hadn’t told anyone else.

“I came out to my sister first. I told her I was bisexual and then about three weeks later told her that I was fully gay. She told my dad, my mom, and my other sister. Not behind my back or anything, but just because it was so hard for me to. I was worried what my dad would think, that he would just see me as someone who gets off by being penetrated by hordes of men. My family was fine, though; they are fairly liberal and accepting. But the trouble was, I just saw myself as a sexual being. Within the gay community I only saw myself as a body and identified myself purely with this sexuality and my physicality....

“....I’ve just finished working three years in construction. It is like coming out of the closet again, because for a while there I had to go back in. I guess in my life I’ve gone through various periods of transformations but in the construction world, you can’t be gay, you are straight, and that was definitely a weird experience because everything changes. For example, how you interact with other males, how you interact in social groups. It was like relearning how to dress, how to walk, talk, sit, you know? I was conscious of how I looked, my movements, what I said and I always sat in a closed posture. One big factor was how you talk about women. You have to overemphasize sex with women so you can fit in. I had to watch them and myself because any sort of effeminacy wasn’t tolerated. They were quite misogynistic too and hated women in their own way.

“I came to construction through more of a spiritual than sexual crisis. I had been in university, had the dreadlocks, and was just floating through it. It didn’t feel right, and so I left to go backpacking and I worked in odd jobs here and there, but I was transient and not wanting to stay around anywhere too long. I started to look at myself and thought that I didn’t want to be this giant identity anymore; I didn’t want to think anymore. I just wanted to do a seven-to-five job and make a salary and be normal, and there’s nothing more normal than construction. It helped me to drop all these layers and return to myself in a more controlled manner.

“Working in construction I was able to act a different version of me. I was able to be one of the guys, and I did it so well that they promoted me and that was quite an achievement. So to get through that and come out of it with my head held high and them not wanting me to leave, made me feel good. Being there helped a lot with my sexuality. It helped me feel more confident as a man as opposed to thinking that because I was gay I wouldn’t really be a man. It also helped me to challenge some of the anti-straight male sentiment that I had picked up from socializing in the gay community. Working in construction I realized I was a strong, independent, critical thinking, intellectual man because that was projected onto me and in turn I projected it out. I fulfilled that role there, and I have taken that into my sexuality and I feel more comfortable now.”

Vera's Story

Imagine we told you a story about a young girl leaving her parents' home without money, a map, or a passport and traveling across borders to find herself sleeping underneath bridges alongside the river in the midst of Paris. The young girl finds herself among a gentle crowd. Being chased each night by the police at various and unpredictable hours, sleep becomes impossible, and in these sleepless hours, the young girl befriends Jose. They spend each night sitting on a bench beside the bridge, their bodies leaning into each other, their hands and lips touching on occasions only to reaffirm their presence within a place and space of kindness, unsettledness, ambiguity and brutality.

Andrew's Story

"I was born into the story of the adopted child, unwanted and given away to somebody else. I grew into stories of the boy who grew up knowing he was different: the fat kid, the kid who knew he liked the other boys and not the girls, and who walked home from school with either my own blood or other people's spit on my face and school shirt. There are still times, even recently, when I am forced to return to these stories, because they are still being lived by others in contexts and times that I left behind long ago. But even though I am not there, fragments of this story have traveled with me across continents, through time, serving as a constant reminder that we are our stories, and our stories are what we need to learn, to live, and to live well. Today, I live and see the world and my work through a lens that compels questions about how our stories shape us, and our relationship with the world in which we live. It is in these moments that I cannot not be a narrative inquirer. I talk back and forth with many lived and told stories; this back-and-forth talk allows me to begin to retell and relive my experience"

Narrative Inquiry

Stories are ubiquitous and ancient (Clandinin, 2006). Stories as they are lived, told, retold, and relived circulate in and fill spaces between people. They offer us insights into experiences and resonate in ways that help us to learn and form connections with others.... One might say that Andrew has been in a relationship of sorts with research participants since he was about ten years old. This context, while not yet a "relationship," holds, incubates, and clarifies or even extends the puzzles and research interests of the narrative inquirer. The construction of a relational space is not an accidental result of mulling over the plans for a research proposal or an ethics submission. These relational considerations are, by contrast, the fundament of a narrative inquiry. Creating spaces that allow us to tell stories of self are one of the ways that we foster development of identity for researcher and participants (Clandinin & Cave,2008). This cannot be achieved by treating stories as reductionist artifacts of a research process.

Vera last saw Jose 25 years ago. Those early childhood experiences have stayed with her in so many ways and shaped who she is today; a reminder that the story is always still working on us. As we look backwards, forwards, and sideways, in this paper we see that as narrative inquirers we resist telling the good story, the story with beginnings and endings, with resolutions, and with illustrative powers (Downey & Clandinin, 2010). Life as it is lived is not neat, tidy, or formulaic. Nor does it easily fit within the confines and conventions of the good story. As such, we resist the good story because it does not reflect our ontological and epistemological positions as narrative inquirers. Instead, being-in-relation guides our work and the stories of experiences that arise from it.