The author speaks of Dr. Per Bech, a Dutch Psychiatrist, and his co-author Lone Lindberg, and his patient who suffered from mental illness over the course of his life, and how the vignette Bech wrote about this patient had value and relevance for understanding the use of Zoloft.
The main point of the article is to explain the history of the vignette or anecdotes in clinical research as an accompaniment to data and analysis, particularly in the realm of psychological medicine. The author makes a case for the importance of the clinical vignette, explaining how it can assist physicians in diagnosing and treating patients.
It was less of a directly researched article and more of a theory hypothesized with several decades of first-hand observation and in-context understand of the subject.
Readers, however, often used the books for a different purpose:
identifying depression. Regularly, I received — and still receive — phone calls: “My
husband is just like — ” one or another figure from a clinical example.
HERE is where I want to venture a radical statement about the worth of
anecdote. Beyond its roles as illustration, affirmation, hypothesisbuilder and lowlevel
guidance for practice, storytelling can act as a modest counterbalance to a
straitened understanding of evidence.
Per Bech’s vignette on his patient
Dr. Kramer’s work on antidepressants
“Listening to Prozac”
This article mainly addressed improving the way research is done and published in the realms of psychiatry. The author communicates the value and use of clinical vignettes, saying that randomized trials and standard data collecting do not tell the full story in psychological medicine, and vignettes and anecdotes fill otherwise empty gaps. Overall, the addition of story-telling to research helps solidify researchers’ and physicians’ understanding and communication about mental illness