I also subscribe to Katherine's newsletter, have her book (I've followed her publication journey in a FB group we're in—perhaps it's the same one?!), and have been wanting to attend one of her doula seminars. I'm hoping to budget for it in the fall/when it comes back up.
I think writing something clinical can work well as a first step in any type of writing when you're recounting personal trauma. Sometimes just spitting out the facts can work as a blueprint so you can weave in the delicate and triggering moments that lead the writer to first learn of those dry clinical terms.
Jul 5, 2023·edited Jul 5, 2023Liked by Courtney Maum
Hoo boy, do I ever relate, as a writing teacher for decades, seeing this emerge in medical memoir from my students and clients, this clinical flavor she's talking about. And as a fan of Heart Berries (what a book!), I certainly relate to those memoirs about illness who are gut-punchers rather than intellectual or factual.
I haven't really wondered why writers move towards the clinical instead of the emotional--it's a lot easier to stomach when you're trying to describe a terror in your life, gives a certain (perhaps false?) detachment or distance. I've been there myself and appreciate the reasoning, but after the clinical descriptions and medical terms are on the page, the next step is to go in and revise to bring out the meaning, imho. And not everyone's up to it. The experience might have worn them out and they have nothing left to say or learn. Even with many years passing, these kinds of trauma can remain all too fresh in the mind and heart. So I don't criticize the writers who stay clinical and avoid the emotion/meaning, believing that the writing process is the healing for them, at that level, like proving a point.
But to touch a reader, it must go further. Clinical is fine, to me as a reader, but the core needs to communicate viscerally. And that's what many don't realize, and why Kati's piece is so important.
Thanks for sharing this, Courtney, and thank you to Kati for the clear, honest message that all writers need to heed.
Fascinating. I picked up a memoir just yesterday at an airport store, What my Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, and it def contains what you’ve described, with a lot of clinical language around C-PTSD and child abuse. After flipping through it and reading a couple passages I stopped and went for something lighter, but it must be popular since it’s being sold at the airport.
Though on the flip side, as a neurodivergent person, I kind of appreciate getting deep into the weeds of the brain. For example, This Naked Mind by Annie Grace has many memoir elements and sections, but also goes for it on the neuroscience of alcohol abuse and addiction.
Jul 6, 2023·edited Jul 6, 2023Liked by Courtney Maum
That memoir (What My Bones Know) is fascinating. She does an incredible job in the second half of the book combining the clinical and the personal in a way I've never seen done before, and the book has meant so much to so many people. That said, I found the structure of the book poorly executed overall (I too almost quit in the opening chapters) and a lot of her trauma writing at the beginning felt very flat to me. It's one of those moments where I wish a brilliant person had a slightly better editor at a key stage. But I very much respect what Stephanie Foo has brought to so many people overall.
Thanks for this! I think I may read it eventually, just didn’t feel right for my plane ride, haha. But I am curious about it. A good editor is so rare.
I was thinking of What My Bones Know too but I thought she did a good job of weaving the science into her story. It reminded me of an NPR piece (which I guess makes sense because she was a producer at NPR)
As someone diagnosed with C-PTSD, I liked that the author included the science because I felt it added validity to a diagnosis that we’re just starting to hear and learn more about.
I don’t usually choose those kinds of memoirs but this hit differently for me.
So needed to be said. The effect that the clinical speak has on me is I get the feeling that someone is talking AT me instead of them trying to let me into their experience. It's flattening, dead language. Of course, using it as a launching pad to the extent it's helpful to establish a fact is great or to elucidate the dynamics in a relationship. Just don't use it as a wall to erect between the writer and me. As Katherine Standefer said, it's story that connects people, story not jargon or clinical language. I'm a lawyer and I see people using legalese in the same way that it places a barrier between people instead of it serving to connect people and ideas. It's a way to say, Hey, look. I'm in the in-group. I speak in the ritual language of my tribe. But if you can't say it in a more simple way that uses language to connect people and ideas then the language fails and people miss out on what the writer is trying to convey.
Thank you so much for this, Courtney and Kati. My first response is one of: Thank you for validating my experience (with writing, but also beyond).
While I understand that diagnoses, labels, and boxes can be helpful for many, I experience them as a cutting off and a violence (even though I "fit" quite a few trending diagnoses, labels, and boxes).
I'll also add that I'm a doctor of Chinese Medicine (and studied biomedicine as part of my training so can "speak its language" though I choose not to). All to say, there is more than one way to diagnose and understand what happens to us. I'd love to see more plurality these days.
This is a really brilliant observation/explanation. Sometimes as an exercise, I have my students write completely novel phrases to replace the feeling words we're all familiar with (like "envy" or "grief"). It's not that "grief" isn't an accurate description; it's that the reader reads past it without much engagement.
Any time language becomes part of the common vernacular (like clinical psychological language in recent years), it is helpful for many reasons—but the tradeoff seems to be that the language becomes open to many different interpretations (no longer narrowly, clinically defined) *and* becomes the kind of "ordinary" language that people read right past without digesting. It's hard (for me) not to rely on the language/labels as a shortcut. Good points from Anna though.
Depression, for one example, is written about in unique ways in Brain on Fire (Calahan), You Could Make This Place Beautiful (Smith), Broken (Lawson).
This is so interesting! I recognize the trend in the book I'm reading now: Open by Rachel Krantz. The book is about the author's personal exploration of polyamory and she deploys a lot of clinical language in her footnotes. Something about it feels ... not quite right — but there's enough juicy bits to keep me reading.
This is a fascinating example. Yes: sexuality is something we expect to be sensual and moving, even arousing-- and clinical or categorical language is distancing in the opposite way. There's a core craft question here around how to get readers to think about something in a fresh manner (which suggests analytical engagement) without losing the presence/engagement of their bodies (the feeling part that helps us stay invested in the thinking). Glad there are enough juicy bits to make it worth it!
Jul 6, 2023·edited Jul 6, 2023Liked by Courtney Maum
Exactly. I'm not saying to NEVER use clinical language-- I'm saying don't rely on clinical language at the expense of-- or in place of-- story. (My own book, Lightning Flowers, has to explain a highly-technical heart condition and a number of heart surgeries that are technologically complex, so I know this dance well!)
Yes! AND, re: doctors' attitudes, if you know enough to discuss your symptoms and their possible causes with the correct terminology, you may be dismissed as one of those hypochondriacs who Googles everything. It's infuriating.
But, regarding clinical language, I think that Standefer provides great advice that could be simplified as "show us the experience first and then, if beneficial, tell us what it is." Or, "suck us into the character's experience and then, when we are craving a better understanding of that experience or want to find a way out of it, give us the theory or diagnosis or whatever.
I also subscribe to Katherine's newsletter, have her book (I've followed her publication journey in a FB group we're in—perhaps it's the same one?!), and have been wanting to attend one of her doula seminars. I'm hoping to budget for it in the fall/when it comes back up.
I think writing something clinical can work well as a first step in any type of writing when you're recounting personal trauma. Sometimes just spitting out the facts can work as a blueprint so you can weave in the delicate and triggering moments that lead the writer to first learn of those dry clinical terms.
That makes sense. Thanks for sharing!
Hoo boy, do I ever relate, as a writing teacher for decades, seeing this emerge in medical memoir from my students and clients, this clinical flavor she's talking about. And as a fan of Heart Berries (what a book!), I certainly relate to those memoirs about illness who are gut-punchers rather than intellectual or factual.
I haven't really wondered why writers move towards the clinical instead of the emotional--it's a lot easier to stomach when you're trying to describe a terror in your life, gives a certain (perhaps false?) detachment or distance. I've been there myself and appreciate the reasoning, but after the clinical descriptions and medical terms are on the page, the next step is to go in and revise to bring out the meaning, imho. And not everyone's up to it. The experience might have worn them out and they have nothing left to say or learn. Even with many years passing, these kinds of trauma can remain all too fresh in the mind and heart. So I don't criticize the writers who stay clinical and avoid the emotion/meaning, believing that the writing process is the healing for them, at that level, like proving a point.
But to touch a reader, it must go further. Clinical is fine, to me as a reader, but the core needs to communicate viscerally. And that's what many don't realize, and why Kati's piece is so important.
Thanks for sharing this, Courtney, and thank you to Kati for the clear, honest message that all writers need to heed.
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for posting--and writing your books. I just reread Before and After and got a whole nother level of good stuff from it.
Thank you for reading!
Fascinating. I picked up a memoir just yesterday at an airport store, What my Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, and it def contains what you’ve described, with a lot of clinical language around C-PTSD and child abuse. After flipping through it and reading a couple passages I stopped and went for something lighter, but it must be popular since it’s being sold at the airport.
Though on the flip side, as a neurodivergent person, I kind of appreciate getting deep into the weeds of the brain. For example, This Naked Mind by Annie Grace has many memoir elements and sections, but also goes for it on the neuroscience of alcohol abuse and addiction.
That memoir (What My Bones Know) is fascinating. She does an incredible job in the second half of the book combining the clinical and the personal in a way I've never seen done before, and the book has meant so much to so many people. That said, I found the structure of the book poorly executed overall (I too almost quit in the opening chapters) and a lot of her trauma writing at the beginning felt very flat to me. It's one of those moments where I wish a brilliant person had a slightly better editor at a key stage. But I very much respect what Stephanie Foo has brought to so many people overall.
Thanks for this! I think I may read it eventually, just didn’t feel right for my plane ride, haha. But I am curious about it. A good editor is so rare.
I was thinking of What My Bones Know too but I thought she did a good job of weaving the science into her story. It reminded me of an NPR piece (which I guess makes sense because she was a producer at NPR)
As someone diagnosed with C-PTSD, I liked that the author included the science because I felt it added validity to a diagnosis that we’re just starting to hear and learn more about.
I don’t usually choose those kinds of memoirs but this hit differently for me.
So needed to be said. The effect that the clinical speak has on me is I get the feeling that someone is talking AT me instead of them trying to let me into their experience. It's flattening, dead language. Of course, using it as a launching pad to the extent it's helpful to establish a fact is great or to elucidate the dynamics in a relationship. Just don't use it as a wall to erect between the writer and me. As Katherine Standefer said, it's story that connects people, story not jargon or clinical language. I'm a lawyer and I see people using legalese in the same way that it places a barrier between people instead of it serving to connect people and ideas. It's a way to say, Hey, look. I'm in the in-group. I speak in the ritual language of my tribe. But if you can't say it in a more simple way that uses language to connect people and ideas then the language fails and people miss out on what the writer is trying to convey.
Legalese--and the way it signals presence in an in-group--is such a fascinating example. Thanks for this!
Thank you so much for this, Courtney and Kati. My first response is one of: Thank you for validating my experience (with writing, but also beyond).
While I understand that diagnoses, labels, and boxes can be helpful for many, I experience them as a cutting off and a violence (even though I "fit" quite a few trending diagnoses, labels, and boxes).
I do not personally subscribe to the hegemonic, allopathic, medicalized model of "solving the self." Lately, in my writing, I've been railing against it. For example (hope it's okay to share here): https://danaleighlyons.substack.com/p/neurodivergence-hsp-addiction-sobriety
"solving the self." I love this phrase. Thanks for sharing!
I'll also add that I'm a doctor of Chinese Medicine (and studied biomedicine as part of my training so can "speak its language" though I choose not to). All to say, there is more than one way to diagnose and understand what happens to us. I'd love to see more plurality these days.
Excellent advice! Thank you.
This is a really brilliant observation/explanation. Sometimes as an exercise, I have my students write completely novel phrases to replace the feeling words we're all familiar with (like "envy" or "grief"). It's not that "grief" isn't an accurate description; it's that the reader reads past it without much engagement.
Any time language becomes part of the common vernacular (like clinical psychological language in recent years), it is helpful for many reasons—but the tradeoff seems to be that the language becomes open to many different interpretations (no longer narrowly, clinically defined) *and* becomes the kind of "ordinary" language that people read right past without digesting. It's hard (for me) not to rely on the language/labels as a shortcut. Good points from Anna though.
Depression, for one example, is written about in unique ways in Brain on Fire (Calahan), You Could Make This Place Beautiful (Smith), Broken (Lawson).
This is so interesting! I recognize the trend in the book I'm reading now: Open by Rachel Krantz. The book is about the author's personal exploration of polyamory and she deploys a lot of clinical language in her footnotes. Something about it feels ... not quite right — but there's enough juicy bits to keep me reading.
This is a fascinating example. Yes: sexuality is something we expect to be sensual and moving, even arousing-- and clinical or categorical language is distancing in the opposite way. There's a core craft question here around how to get readers to think about something in a fresh manner (which suggests analytical engagement) without losing the presence/engagement of their bodies (the feeling part that helps us stay invested in the thinking). Glad there are enough juicy bits to make it worth it!
Good point--we need to own all of it, the clinical and the emotional.
Exactly. I'm not saying to NEVER use clinical language-- I'm saying don't rely on clinical language at the expense of-- or in place of-- story. (My own book, Lightning Flowers, has to explain a highly-technical heart condition and a number of heart surgeries that are technologically complex, so I know this dance well!)
Yes! AND, re: doctors' attitudes, if you know enough to discuss your symptoms and their possible causes with the correct terminology, you may be dismissed as one of those hypochondriacs who Googles everything. It's infuriating.
But, regarding clinical language, I think that Standefer provides great advice that could be simplified as "show us the experience first and then, if beneficial, tell us what it is." Or, "suck us into the character's experience and then, when we are craving a better understanding of that experience or want to find a way out of it, give us the theory or diagnosis or whatever.