Beyond the “Fetishism of Words”: Considerations on the Use of the Interview to Gather Chronic Illness Narratives

The author explores the technique of interviewing chronic illness patients to obtain narratives of their illness experiences. It is argued that the perspective that interview responses are accurate reflections of experience (the "fetishism of words") hampers the understanding of patient voice and agency. Discussions of chronic illness and narrative are followed by an examination of the interview based on the work of Charles L. Briggs. The author then uses the concepts of self-presentation and social support to examine what interviewers and interviewees contribute to the coconstructed discourse that is produced by the interview and addresses the question of how these concepts contribute to the beneficial outcomes of constructing narratives. The author offers specific suggestions for future research.