ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses narrative ideas that provide a framework for thinking about everything that goes on in primary care, including encounters with patients and encounters between professionals. It provides ideas from family therapy that act as a helpful bridge between narrative thinking from the social sciences and the practical world of primary care. The book explores that some contemporary thinkers see all knowledge as stories, including science and medicine. People in primary care can make good use of such ideas, while remaining grounded in the world of action and physical facts. Stories or narratives —the words are interchangeable —unite all cultures, cross all history and arise in all circumstances. Stories in this sense are not fables, lies or fairy tales. They are the way we understand, experience, communicate and indeed create ourselves.
