A 36-year-old Dominican man with a chief symptom of back pain comes to see me for the first time. As his new internist, I tell him, I have to learn as much as I can about his health. Could he tell me whatever he thinks I should know about his situation? And thenIdomybestnottosayaword,nottowritein his chart, but to absorb all that he emits about his life and his health. I listen not only for the content of his narrative, but for its form — its temporal course, its images, its associated subplots, its silences, where he chooses to begin in telling of himself, how he sequences symptoms with other life events. I pay attention to the narrative’s performance — the pa- tient’s gestures, expressions, body positions, tones of voice. After a few minutes,
