The Narrative Effects of Shamanic Mythology in Palliative Care

Abstract

We make meaning of disease, suffering, and death through narrative, by telling a story. In a therapeutic narrative approach, this article explores the influence of shamanic intervention in psycho-oncology. This qualitative study seeks to present the narrative effects of detailed shamanic sessions (the use of the drum and telling and interpreting visions according to the shamanic mythology) in the context of psycho-oncological treatment. In particular, the narrative positions of a patient (Mrs. AA) are described (using a software linguistic analysis, T-LAB) as they occurred before and after shamanistic sessions. The authors suggested that the shamanism sessions enabled Mrs. AA to produce a larger and more singular narrative about her end-of-life experience: from the initial narrative position of feeling “the acute consciousness of finiteness” to an emergent narrative position based on “consciousness of an interdependence/interconnection in all human and spiritual relationships.”