Elizabeth Chase Toksu

I am an advocate for patients in NYC acute care hospitals. I began my work during the AIDS epidemic and am currently in cancer care. My life unfolded parallel to listening to staff and patient perspectives, in an effort to enhance care and understanding. After tragedy struck my life in the most profound way, I understood the importance of having the opportunity to connect with others by being the teller (and not only the listener) of my own stories. This was possible thanks to an excellent therapist (an expert in the humanities) and my coursework at Columbia University’s Narrative Medicine program. It was an irreplaceable opportunity to both write and speak my stories, first with an assigned storytelling partner and then in a performance. The initial one-on-one therapeutic support empowered me to follow my interests by pursuing a graduate degree in Narrative Medicine, a relatively new interdisciplinary field which places patients/families and their life stories back where they belong: at the center of their care.
 
It was a chance reunion with Shailly. We were walking along 68th Street in opposite directions, both in the middle of cell phone calls. She was on the phone with her son, celebrating his birthday and I was on the phone with my mother-in-law, consoling her about the loss of her same age grandson. Out of a chance encounter was born this storytelling collaboration on behalf of a shared vision for restorative justice. Two teachers who are both mental health and theatre professionals, Dr. Murray Nossel and Dr. Paul Browde, taught me their “What Happened” method. Their method involves stating only the facts of stories, leaving out description of the emotions experienced. The idea is to trust that the listener will more fully experience and understand the teller’s feelings through the story’s rich description than by the teller saying “and that made me feel really bad.” These teachers also convinced me that it is the listening that shapes the telling.

As a mid-life recipient of support, I am equipped and inspired to provide support for others as we all make our way in the world. We need to give second, third, and fourth chances to one another, something that functional and humane societies know to be key to the ultimate success of its members. My educational background is in History and Fine Arts. My current interests include everything under (and over) the sun and moon, especially storytelling, museum education, collaging, and therapeutic poetry writing. Everyday life, nature, people, and the mysteries of life inspire me to continue seeking and striving to do and be my best — for myself and for others.