Aiding AIDS Through Writing: A Study and Bibliography

Abstract

N arrative writing, according to Jerome Bruner's ( 1 984) often-quoted passage, joins the writer to possible worlds that provide the landscape for thinking about the human condition (p. 1 28) . Expressivist pedagogy stresses writing to­ ward self-discovery, while a Freirean view emphasizes not just self-awareness but a critical of self and society. Such consciousness empowers individuals and groups to improve their situation. Nel Noddings ( 1 984) also focusses on awareness, change, and growth as a result of caring relationships between teachers and students. Noddings' theory of care simply states that every human encounter is a potential occasion for caring. The connections between writing and healing are evident in the work of theorists ' in composition studies and education (Campbell, 1 994; Moffett, 1 98 1 ; Rico, 1 9 9 1 ) . But it is a scholar from another discipline, nursing, who brings together self-awareness, change, and growth as healing. Jean Watson' s idea of human care in nursing asserts that patients and nurses together are partners in the healing process. Their relation­ ship is mutually transformative; i t is fostered by understanding, love, and con­ cern. This is particularly important in nursing, because caring is necessary when curing has failed. No cure is known for AIDS , but healing is still possible. At an AIDS clinic called the Nursing Project in Human Caring (also known as the Caring Center) in Denver, Watson's ideas were put into practice. Patients received one-on-one nursing care and engaged in traditional and nontraditional therapies, including reiki massage, tai kwando, and rafting and hiking trips. While volunteering at the Caring Center, my proposal to run a six-week writ­ ing group was welcomed as an expressive activity that would constitute a caring occasion. Eight people attended, six men and two women, including me. The group spanned ages 20+ to about 60 years. Half the writers were homosexual and half were heterosexual. Over the next six weeks, four writers stayed with the group and a few others dropped in. I filled two spiral notebooks with field notes and collected more than 200 pages of the participants' writings. I also conducted in-depth interviews with each writer as well as with the director of the Caring Center, its personnel, and others involved in the AIDS community. I later analyzed the data to learn more about the healing that took place when these individuals wrote. As I collected the group members' writings and other materials, I followed a qualitative research method based in sociology called Grounded Theory which enabled me to analyze the writing and the interviews and to distinguish impor-