Collected thoughts on narrative in occupational therapy documentation

About ten years or so ago I wrote about the potential power of using writing and hypertext as a qualitative methodology for understanding human narrative.  I got that idea back in high school, actually, after reading the Langston Hughes poem, Theme for English B:The instructor said,      Go home and write       a page tonight.       And let that page come out of you—       Then, it will be true.I wonder if it’s that simple?...The poem is all about identity, and expression, and trying to understand point of view.  I struggle with this concept of documentation as representation of life.  Can documentation represent life, really?  I think it can when I read Langston Hughes, but when I focus in on a short essays like in the Humans of New York series I can't read more than one or two of them.I object to them, mostly, because when I read them I feel like someone is distilling a life into an evocative photo and 60 seconds worth of reading.  It is just too neatly packaged.  The impression that I believe the reader is supposed to be left with is one of a point of understanding.  Instead, I am left with the idea that someone's life has just been Facebooked into farcical representation of actual reality.I don't know if 'Facebooked' is an actual term.  I just made it up. What is worse, the distillation, or reading the distilla...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT stories philosophy Source Type: blogs