The Words Matter Podcast with Oliver Thomson

Dr Oliver Thomson talks with GP and researcher Prof. Anna Luise Kirkengen about embodiment, stories and childhood trauma for The Words Matter Podcast CauseHealth Series.

Show Notes

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.

In this episode of the CauseHealth Series I’m speaking with Professor Anna Luise Kirkengen about her Chapter 15 show wrote titled Broken Child – A Diseased Woman.

Anna Luise is Professor of General Practice in the Department of Public Health and Nursing, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and has worked as General Practitioner for 30 years.

She specialises on the health impacts of childhood violation and is author many papers on the topic and also two books titled The Lived Experience of Violation - How Abused Children Become Unhealthy Adults and Inscribed Bodies - Health Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse, ‘Creating Chronicity.

In this episode we speak about:
  • Her experience as a GP and researcher, and the importance of patient stories and why she thinks phenomenology and whole person approaches are a crucial and ethical requirement for all healthcare professional.
  • We speak about the problem with the biomedical model from a clinical and research.
  • We speak about how she sees the body as being inscribed and saturated with meaning and how healthcare must stop thinking of the silent body and the speaking mind.
  • We talk about how frameworks that endorse mind-body dualism are deeply problematic, and how she sees all experience as embodied.
  • Finally, Anna Luise shares how she facilitates the patients’ narratives and her openness to encourage patients to confide, in detail, their stories of harm, shame and abuse.
So this was a rich and detailed conversation with someone who has spent decades seeking to understand whole people; their suffering, their hardship and their lives. Anna Luise shares some specific details of the people she has encountered through her work that have been abused as children. If you think this might be too difficult to hear, you may choose to skip a couple of minutes from around 24 minutes in.

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What is The Words Matter Podcast with Oliver Thomson?

The Words Matter Podcast brings you insights, reflections and conversations focused on the latest evidence, theory, philosophy and practice of communication-focused healthcare.

Find out about the more tacit, 'softer' and personal side of clinical practice such as the role of philosophy, beliefs, behaviours, developing therapeutic relationships or the purposeful use of language with people experiencing pain from expert academics, clinicians and researchers from across the world and spanning the musculoskeletal disciplines. This podcast will help you reflect on your own current practice and inform and stimulate you to consider new ways of approaching your practice and patients, to create a better clinical experience and outcomes in people with musculoskeletal pain.

Hosted by Dr Oliver Thomson PhD, an osteopath and Associate Professor who is passionate about researching and educating clinicians on a revised narrative, communication and biopsychosocial approach to musculoskeletal therapy. If you like the podcast, subscribe and check out the online learning and resources at www.wordsmatter-education.com.

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