“…we often do so learning from our peers. When it comes to illness-warranted behavior changes, as like seeks like, it’s often easier to make changes learned from fellow patients with whom you share the experience of a disease.”
– Riva Greenberg, The Power of Patient-Expert Books (an article worth your time, particularly if your life intersects with diabetes)
Pew Internet will publish our latest data on peer-to-peer health care next week. It won’t be a deep dive, as was our 2011 report by that name, but more a scan of the online health landscape. Can’t wait to share!
Is it legal to comment on your own post within minutes of publishing it? I’m going to.
I recently finished reading “Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms With His Sexuality,” by John Schwartz. In his foreword, Schwartz quotes an essay by Timothy Noah, which I’ll quote, too:
But whenever I try to cope with one of life’s predictable stress points by reading a self-help book, I can’t manage it. My eyes glaze over. I think “This person is an idiot,” or “This person thinks I’m an idiot,” or “Maybe I am an idiot, because I can’t follow this.” Within minutes I toss the book aside and start digging around for a decent novel.
What I’ve come to believe is that psychological advice isn’t worth much if it isn’t rooted in personal experience. So instead of reading self-help books I read memoirs about the kinds of experience I’m trying to cope with.
I’ll write more about Oddly Normal in another post, but suffice to say I liked it so much that I’m reading the citations, including Noah’s essay.
Noah goes on to review a book about one dad’s stress over his son’s college application process, but his opening riff is what will stick with me. Personally, I have gained a lot of insight from self-help books, but it’s true that I have a much bigger collection of memoirs. What if a writer is able to weave practical advice into a memoir? I think that describes many of the patient-expert books listed in Riva Greenberg’s essay.
Hi Susannah,
Thanks for putting up a link to the patient expert post. i was wondering, is there a way to get a copy of your forthcoming peer to peer health care research?
Yes! I have your email address now and will send it next Friday, Jan. 11 (if all goes well with final editorial review, etc).
If anyone else would like a preview so they can write about it, please shoot me an email: sfox at pewinternet dot org – or leave a comment.
Susannah said: “What if a writer is able to weave practical advice into a memoir?” I think that’s a beautiful projection of the idea of the unique position many patients and caregivers are in to teach us. Especially when it’s about serious chronic illness, they are often the only ones who have a deep understanding of both the science and the experience. And when they share it in a compelling narrative, wow.
I also just finished “Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms With His Sexuality”. I think it’s a must read for any parent.