A Positive Lens
If this is the first time you’ve heard about Appreciative Inquiry, you may be sharing my initial thoughts: What a load of New Age crock! Everyone gets a trophy! How can we possibly ignore our weaknesses? But slowly, I’ve been convinced that perseverating over the negative is likely counterproductive, and identifying strengths and benefits is a more humanistic way to approach work dynamics.
Of course, I cannot summarize 40 years of research on Appreciative Inquiry into a 2,000-word column, but the pith is that when you orient yourself toward solving problems, you start to see the world as a set of problems, rather than a panoply of potential opportunities—the positive principle. Similarly, when you reframe and reclaim the words around you, you start to construct a reality that feels more aspirational—the constructionist principle. And because words seem to be most powerful when strung together in the form of stories, understanding what animates people through their own narratives may be a fruitful way to promote engagement and meaning in their work—the poetic and simultaneity principles. Altogether, when we reframe our world through positive thoughts and words, we start engaging in positive actions that lead us toward the realization of our goals—the anticipatory principle.
Appreciative Rheumatology
Well, that’s all fine, but how does this relate to rheumatology? In my mind’s eye, it has everything to do with our subspecialty. As rheumatologists, we are expected to be superior diagnosticians, to uncover what is wrong with people and systems. But rarely do we conceive our role as the people who identify what is right and what is correct. Even when we think of the word positive in the clinical context, we rheumatologists mostly use it to refer to the presence of abnormal antibodies that cause disease.
When we start to orient ourselves toward a truly positive lens, we find ourselves becoming better doctors. We begin to conceptualize ourselves as people who are not there to bust inflammation, but to support the patient’s sense of holistic well-being. That is the latent power of rheumatology that Appreciative Rheumatology can uncover: We don’t treat people only for inflammatory diseases. We provide support to enable our patients to find meaning in their health and life journeys.
We are facilitators of hope. We are advocates for joy. We are generators of positive possibilities. We are stewards of human dignity. We are custodians of our own self-care. We are cultivators of critical thinking. And we are a million other things that we choose to be.
