ABSTRACT

Empathy has certainly been recognised as playing an important role in the relationships between patient and healthcare practitioners. In relation to the notion of embodiment and issues of de-personalisation, this chapter focuses on the importance of relationships between healthcare professionals and patients. With regard to issues of limbo, it considers issues such as continuity of care, which involves healthcare policy and making provision to support staff in their efforts to deliver humane and effective healthcare. Relationships between healthcare professionals and patients clearly play an important role in healthcare settings. R. Marshall and A. Kelley's description of a poetry workshop for healthcare staff illustrates how the capacity for 'relating as a person' is fostered through the aesthetic tending and telling of one's own stories and attending to one another's stories. Narrative approaches position people alongside each other and therefore recognise the reciprocal nature of conversations between storytellers and audience.