bron: http://www.qub.ac.uk/cden/NewsandEvents/
Public Lecture and Workshop
Date: 29 March 2008
Title: Approaching Death. Palliative Care from a Narrative Perspective
Speaker: Drs. Gonnie Jansen http://www.onderons.nu
Affiliation: Onderons, the Netherlands
Place: Queens University , PFC 307
Time: 10 am - 12 am
More information: Palliative care nurse Gonnie Jansen takes a narrative approach to dying patients.
As a private nurse and a trainer in a hospice in the Netherlands, she initiated several narrative projects
in which patients were stimulated to actively remember their past as part of holistic treatment. Her
approach to palliative care is partly inspired by 'dignity therapy', a therapeutic intervention developed
by the Canadian psychiatrist Harvey Chochinov that offers comfort to patients through reminiscence.
In this therapeutic approach, patients aim to restore a sense of self through reflection on their personal
life. Jansen will elaborate on her experiences with the production of personal cd's that record the life
stories of her patients, both for themselves and their surviving relatives and friends. She will also show
fragments of a documentary she made on palliative carers and their passion for the profession. As
part of the lecture, Jansen will give a short workshop that will allow the audience to practice her
method. During the workshop, important methodological and ethical questions will be addressed, such
as 'how to use the methodology?' and 'how to deal with the emotional dynamics involved?' The
innovative treatment is relevant to students and scholars in medical disciplines, the social sciences
and history, as it combines more conventional forms of medical practice with methods commonly used
by psychotherapists, anthropologists and oral historians.
Photographs taken during Gonnie Jansen's workshop