The story - part 1

[Barrett Dorko]

Clay Shirky says in Here Comes Everybody:

We suffer not from “information overload” but from filtering failure. The minute people are exposed to reality they freak out.

Well, who could blame them? I have the sense that this “freaking out” is directly related to our tendency to tell stories (known as an evolutionary imperative), confabulate and simply lie often enough to confuse ourselves, even to the point we are certain, that our story might be true.

My explanations to patients about the ectodermal rational behind my thinking and management usually draw them into my circle of understanding. The same explanation offered my colleagues drives them away.

My failure has at it root an inability to lie about my therapeutic practice – to make up a story my coworkers find compelling. Instead, I want to explain things. I want to make a case.

Unfortunately, only story will penetrate.

More about all this tomorrow.

[Diane]

Filters - funny you mention these - I woke up in full vampiric wide-awakeness (before 4AM) with ideas for slides on the topic.

[Diane]

Here's a sample.

[Barrett Dorko]

To me, science based thinking is the first filter we need. It reasonably and effectively reduces the obligation many feel to consider ANYTHING that might demonstrate evidence of “working.” Evidence based practice allows too much through, as does biomechanical examination of tissues unlikely to be involved with the problem.

Mesodermalists let all kinds of extraneous stuff through and they ignore many essential elements of dysfunction, but they have one distinct advantage.

They have a better story.

[Diane]

A better story about Alzheimer's: Peter Whitehouse interviewed by Ginger Campbell on BrainScience Podcast.
Just finished listening to it - highly recommend it. Noticed echoes of topics that have been under discussion on SS repeatedly - importance of narrative, re-framing, diagnoses as frames, frames as concepts, not reality, plus, how to discuss brain aging without dragging up noceboes. Whitehouse says he's for integrative medicine but I think his idea of it is fairly specific, non-woo.