The workshop was the brainchild of the Tantimondi Association in Milan, in which members, pedagogues, psychologists and theologians gained training experience in Narrative Medicine, an approach devised by the American physician Rita Charon in the clinical field.
The term Narrative Medicine (borrowed from the English Narrative Medicine) refers to a methodology of clinical care intervention based on a specific communicative competence. According to this approach, narrative becomes the fundamental tool for acquiring, understanding and integrating the different points of view of those involved in illness or psychological distress and in the care processes.
The project was scientifically coordinated and supported by Alteritas Verona, which has been engaged in research on migration phenomena since its foundation.
Given the growing psychic distress of migrants, which is linked to the events of migration themselves as well as to previous living conditions, the proposal aimed to provide practitioners and migrants with tools for initial support in dealing with psychic distress.
The workshop, which was held at the Alteritas headquarters in ten meetings from April to November 2017, involved four host cooperatives and a group of asylum-seeking migrants. The MNM team then drafted a final document, describing how Narrative Medicine was used for the first time in a migratory setting, with practitioners and migrants interacting in the same process.
Funding: 9500€
Period: April to December 2017
Coordination: Alteritas, Verona
