11 | Narrative Therapy and Liberation | Tanvi Avasthi

Social Medicine On Air

Tanvi Avasthi (@tanvicious) speaks with us today about narrative therapy, loss and trauma, and the power of asking "what do you want?" to recenter our patients as protagonists of their own lives. She explains how we can avoid pathologizing our patients and ourselves, and how we can resist the forces of white supremacy and capitalism which are attempting to destroy us and make us hate ourselves. She shows us a way of beautifully holding the humanity, justice, and poetry of healing together.

SMOA producer Raghav Goyal joins this conversation as cohost.

Tanvi holds masters degrees in Medical Anthropogy and in Nursing and currently works as an ER nurse in Batimore, and is a future Midwife and Women's Health Nurse Practitioner. In addition to her clinical work, she also has experience working as a doula and yoga instructor, and we know her through her work as one of the co-founders of the Campaign Against Racism, an activist group with chapters all around the world, that is using tools of restorative justice, narrative therapy, and community organizing to effect local and systems wide change.

Her recommended resources:

• Narrative Medicine Suggested Questions (PDF), bit.ly/2I14rdN

• Narrative Therapy slides (Campaign Against Racism online presentation, Tanvi Avasthi, 2020), bit.ly/2Gt1h1X

• Charon R, Wyer P; NEBM Working Group. Narrative evidence based medicine. Lancet. 2008 Jan 26;371(9609):296-7. bit.ly/389Aweb

• Kleinman A, Benson P. Anthropology in the clinic: the problem of cultural competency and how to fix it. PLoS Med. 2006 Oct;3(10):e294. bit.ly/2JunJZy