Resources to Promote Inclusion and Belonging

For Spring 2022, the JHR is publishing for the first time a resource list related to cultivating belonging for students and patients in healthcare education and healthcare settings. This exceptional compilation of articles, books, movies, and artwork could serve as “an academic course in and of itself,” according to one of our editors.

Doing Healthcare Research Differently: An Introduction to SocioHealthLab’s Special Video Series, Part 1

In this first of two installments within SocioHealthLab’s special video series with JHR, the authors “begin doing health research dissemination differently” by telling their “story/stories” through animation, music, sound, and discourse. The videos shared here range from heart-rending personal patient experiences of pain and fear, to a humorous ‘what-if’ look at rehabilitation processes with the use of cartoon animals. Viewers are invited to relax and share these brief accounts in a “quiet space.”

Office Visit

With observant humor and a brisk rhythm, Michele Mekel’s poem evokes the memory of an awkward encounter in a waiting room, where a doctor initially dismissed her at first sight. “Office Visit” serves as a reminder to healthcare professionals not to make snap judgments and underestimate their clients.

Reconciling Mystical Experience with Concept of the Self: The Poetry of an Individual with a Right Temporal Lobectomy

This poignant report maps the direct line between the introduction of humanities into rehabilitation and its powerful impact on healing—and beyond. It begins with a case study of a 47-year-old woman with a right temporal lobectomy at age 22, who has written poetry over the past 30 years “to express her positive mystical experiences.” The content then switches to the first-person, with poet Michele Slaton describing the remarkable insights she has experienced on her rehabilitation journey. Her poems, included here, present a deep and moving argument for the gifts that a physical crisis can unlock when humanities play a part in treatment.

Fall Editorial 2021: “Hope is a Muscle”

As we continue to grapple with multiple challenges to our collective well-being, Sarah Blanton explores the healing power of hope in her latest editorial. How, she asks, might we transform “a landscape of loss” into a “horizon of hope?”

“Do You Have the Coronavirus?”

On a day that should have been memorable for its joy, Henry Fok had an encounter that would ultimately inspire him to re-examine his future role as a physical therapist.

Toward a Social Psychoanalysis of Rehabilitation Practice

In a fascinating and thought-provoking piece, Thomas Abrams calls on the works of Sigmund Freud, and of modern critics and interpreters of Freud, to explore the rehabilitation clinic as a “space of desire.” What desires motivate patients and rehabilitation teams alike?