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Patients and doctors have long understood the power of telling and listening to personal narratives. Whether among patients in peer support groups or between doctors and patients in the exam room or even between doctors during consultations, stories are an essential part of how we communicate, _______ experiences and add new information to our lives.

_______ the existence of storytelling in medicine, research on its effects in the clinical setting has remained relatively thin. While important, a vast majority of studies haven’t been based on _______, offering up neither data nor statistics but rather stories to _______ the authors’ claims. Now The Annals of Internal Medicine has published the results of a provocative（煽动的）new trial examining the effects of storytelling on patients with high blood pressure. And it appears that at least for one group of patients, listening to personal narratives helped control high blood pressure as effectively as the addition of                    more _______.

“Telling and listening to stories is the way we make sense of our lives,” said Dr. Thomas K. Houston, lead author of the study. “That natural tendency may have the potential to alter people’s behavior and improve health.”

Experts in this emerging field of narrative communication say that storytelling _______ fights against the initial denial that can arise when a patient learns of a new diagnosis or is asked to change deeply fixed behaviors. Patients may react to this news by thinking, “This is not directly related to me,” or “My experience is different.” Stories help _______ that denial by engaging the listener, often through some degree of identification with the _______ or one of the characters.

“The magic of stories lies in the relatedness they promote,” Dr. Houston said. “_______ have known this for a long time, which is why you see so many stories in advertisements.” Dr. Houston is currently involved in several more studies that will examine the broader use of story telling in patient care.

Nonetheless, he remains certain of one thing: Sharing narratives can be a powerful tool for doctors and patients. Storytelling is human,” Dr. Houston said. “We learn through stories, and we use them to make sense of our lives. It’s a natural __________ of traditional medicine that we could use stories to improve our health.”