Designing for wellbeing

as projected to others, but also to ourselves. Stories give us the illusion of
sequence and order: the appearance of causality and the look of necessity.
Stories justify our actions and they explain our behaviour towards others.
Our very identities become constructed out of the stories we tell to ourselves
and others. But what if one is unable to tell one’s own story? If we
tell ourselves stories in order to live, then the consequences of the inability
to do so must be dire. One can only imagine being in a condition where
the self-narrative is decomposing, producing the anxiety and depression
of meaninglessness.
The problem with stories is not necessarily that we lack a story; it is
rather that we are unable to act upon it – telling one’s story becomes the
problem. “The ill person, who fails to turn his/her illness into a story, fails
to transform his/her fate into experience.” “In the telling of stories, we
create empathic bonds between ourselves and the listeners. Those who
listened then tell others, and the circle of shared experience widens.” 2 Like
a story, the scenario becomes part of this wider circle of shared experience.
The scenario becomes an extension to a story that waits to be told
and shared. And in presenting a scenario, the design students suddenly,
perhaps unknowingly and unintentionally, played an important role in
extending this story to a wider audience. Hence, in regards to the maelstrom
of psychiatric care, it is essential for us to understand that seriously
ill people are wounded not just in body or mind but also in voice. And the
design students can assume a significant responsibility by extending the
stories of those who are unable to tell them themselves.
But to fulfil this responsibility of storyteller is not easy. The designers
may not have considered themselves storytellers and storytelling may not
have been commonly seen as a craft within design. Each design comes with
its own story, but it is different when we consider the story as the main
2 A. W. Frank, The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics, 1st ed. University Of Chicago
Press, 1997.
78 · Designing wellbeing through storytelling