High Stakes, Serious Noticing

Abstract

Behind the immediate pathophysiology of a medical condition often lies the emotional turmoil of an uncertain patient. As a result, many patients suffer from distressing thoughts and emotions, and their caregivers play an important role in comforting them. But to comfort a patient one must first have some framework to understand thoughts, emotions, and the relationship between the two. In this piece, the author draws from a collection of essays, Serious Noticing, written by the literary critic James Wood, to provide such a framework. In his work, Wood writes of 2 methods of reading literature, both embodied in the question: "What is at stake in this passage?" This framework is useful for both the analysis of literature and the understanding of psychological turmoil.