I recently listened to a CBC radio program about liminal photography. It piqued my interest because the concept of liminality was a focus of my dissertation on healthcare narratives and I find myself continually drawn to its explanatory power.
The radio show explored “liminal space photography” which documents empty hallways, dark stairways, old arcades, and so-called dead malls. This genre of photography exploded in popularity during the pandemic as the images resonated with people living through the isolation of COVID lockdowns.
A focus of my own academic research was on liminal spaces in healthcare, and I was intrigued to hear that the concept had spread beyond the walls of academe and gained traction in popular culture.
The word “liminality” is from the Latin: “līmen,” meaning “threshold” or “doorstep.” In anthropology, liminality describes the middle part of a ritual or rite of passage. (The idea of “betwixt and between” comes from Victor W. Turner’s classic 1979 essay of the same name.)
It’s an experience of leaving one place or state, and not yet arriving at another. Therapist Theodora Blanchfield, describes the psychology of liminality as the “uncertain transition between where you’ve been and where you’re going physically, emotionally, or metaphorically.”
While the concept of liminality can be applied to physical spaces, it can also refer to the ambiguous psychological state of uncertainty and possibility.
It’s proved to be a flexible and valuable concept in healthcare as well. Liminality was taken up in healthcare research over twenty years ago to describe the experience of living with a serious illness or living on the uneasy border between health and illness as is the case of chronic illness and disability.
It has also been used to describe the ambiguous status of medical students as they navigate the transition from lay person to healthcare practitioner.
Perhaps most poignantly, the idea of liminality has been applied to the experience of waiting – waiting for appointments, waiting for test results, and spending time in waiting rooms. These experiences are so endemic to healthcare they are often accepted by healthcare providers and patients without comment.
Going back to my dissertation, a passage about an oncology clinic waiting room by social worker Rita Wilder Craig (2007) jumped out at me:
“Outpatient Oncology often looks like a war zone and today is no exception. The décor is dreary and there are often not enough chairs for the patients and family members who come with them. Some are standing. This is difficult as a lot of waiting goes on in this clinic. It is often an all-day affair. They even serve lunch here, although most people don’t feel much like eating.”
From ‘A Day in the Life of a Hospital Social Worker: Presenting Our Role Through the Personal Narrative’ in Qualitative Social Work, 2007.
Describing the outpatient oncology waiting room as a “war zone” may seem dramatic, but it captures the fear and dread that often fills spaces where patients are dealing with “deep illness” (Arthur Frank).
The outpatient oncology clinic is “betwixt and between” different realms – the outside world and the world of the hospital and the borderland between what Susan Sontag called “the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick.”
The idea of liminality helps us attach language to that which is hard to articulate in healthcare and beyond. As Aiden Tait, a PhD candidate in literature describes, “it’s the feeling you get when you’re in a space between the no longer and the not yet.”
That’s a space most of us don’t want to inhabit, but inevitably will when facing illness, loss, or life transitions.
References
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-impact-of-liminal-space-on-your-mental-health-5204371