"As the patient tells, I listen as hard as I can--- not taking notes during this segment of the interview, not interrupting unless critical, not indicating one way or another what I consider salient or meaningful or interesting. I try my best to register the diction, the form, the images, the pace of speech. I pay attention--- as I sit there on the edge of my seat, absorbing what is being given--- to metaphors, idioms, accompanying gestures, as well as plot and characters represented for me by the patient. . . . I listen not only for the content of his narrative but also for its form. . . its silences, where he chooses to begin in telling of himself, how he sequences symptoms with other life events. After a few minutes, the patient stops talking and begins to weep. I ask him why he cries. He says, 'No one ever let me do this before.'"
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Slow medicine
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