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Because medical illness has been one of the primary contexts in which researchers have studied the phenomenon of positive life change, this book focuses on how positive life change might be fostered in the context of medical illness.
One of medicine's most remarkable therapeutic triumphs was the discovery of insulin in 1921. The drug produced astonishing results, rescuing children and adults from the deadly grip of diabetes. But as Chris Feudtner demonstrates, the subsequent transformation of the disease from a fatal condition into a chronic illness is a story of success tinged with irony, a revealing saga that illuminates the complex human consequences of medical intervention. Bittersweet chronicles this history of diabetes through the compelling perspectives of people who lived with this disease. Drawing on a remarkable body of letters exchanged between patients or their parents and Dr. Elliot P. Joslin and the staff of physicians at his famed Boston clinic, Feudtner examines the experience of living with diabetes across the twentieth century, highlighting changes in treatment and their profound effects on patients' lives. Although focused on juvenile-onset, or Type 1, diabetes, the themes explored in Bittersweet have implications for our understanding of adult-onset, or Type 2, diabetes, as well as a host of other diseases that, thanks to drugs or medical advances, are being transformed from acute to chronic conditions. Indeed, the tale of diabetes in the post-insulin era provides an ideal opportunity for exploring the larger questions of how medicine changes our lives.
"People often claim to experience improved relationships with family and friends, a clearer sense of their own strengths and resilience, changed priorities about what is important in life, and various other positive changes after struggling with stressful or traumatic events. What are we to make of these claims? Can we determine whether perceptions of change reflect real, verifiable change--that is, is it possible for someone to believe that he or she has grown while still exhibiting the same self-defeating thoughts and behaviors? Or is the perception of change itself an important meaning reconstruction process? What factors influence personal growth, and what effect does growth have on physical and mental health? This book examines these issues in depth and draws out their implications for research and clinical practice. Because medical illness has been one of the primary contexts in which researchers have studied the phenomenon of positive life change, this book focuses on how positive life change might be fostered in the context of medical illness"--Jacket. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).
Using the lives of artists as inspiration, "When Walls Become Doorways" explores the transformative power of illness and the ability of productivity and creativity to heal the soul.
For most of literary history, personal confessions about illness were considered too intimate to share publicly. By the mid-twentieth century, however, a series of events set the stage for the emergence of the illness narrative. The increase of chronic disease, the transformation of medicine into big business, the women's health movement, the AIDS/HIV pandemic, the advent of inexpensive paperbacks, and the rise of self-publishing all contributed to the proliferation of narratives about encounters with medicine and mortality. While the illness narrative is now a staple of the publishing industry, the genre itself has posed a problem for literary studies. What is the role of criticism in relation to personal accounts of suffering? Can these narratives be judged on aesthetic grounds? Are they a collective expression of the lost intimacy of the patient-doctor relationship? Is their function thus instrumental—to elicit the reader's empathy? To answer these questions, Ann Jurecic turns to major works on pain and suffering by Susan Sontag, Elaine Scarry, and Eve Sedgwick and reads these alongside illness narratives by Jean-Dominique Bauby, Reynolds Price, and Anne Fadiman, among others. In the process, she defines the subgenres of risk and pain narratives and explores a range of critical responses guided, alternately, by narrative empathy, the hermeneutics of suspicion, and the practice of reparative reading. Illness as Narrative seeks to draw wider attention to this form of life writing and to argue for new approaches to both literary criticism and teaching narrative. Jurecic calls for a practice that's both compassionate and critical. She asks that we consider why writers compose stories of illness, how readers receive them, and how both use these narratives to make meaning of human fragility and mortality.
Over the past half-century, the social terrain of health and illness has been transformed. What were once considered normal human events and common human problems—birth, aging, menopause, alcoholism, and obesity—are now viewed as medical conditions. For better or worse, medicine increasingly permeates aspects of daily life. Building on more than three decades of research, Peter Conrad explores the changing forces behind this trend with case studies of short stature, social anxiety, "male menopause," erectile dysfunction, adult ADHD, and sexual orientation. He examines the emergence of and changes in medicalization, the consequences of the expanding medical domain, and the implications for health and society. He finds in recent developments—such as the growing number of possible diagnoses and biomedical enhancements—the future direction of medicalization. Conrad contends that the impact of medical professionals on medicalization has diminished. Instead, the pharmaceutical and biotechnical industries, insurance companies and HMOs, and the patient as consumer have become the major forces promoting medicalization. This thought-provoking study offers valuable insight into not only how medicalization got to this point but also how it may continue to evolve.
The experience of illness is a universal and substantial part of human existence. Like death, illness raises important philosophical issues. But unlike death, illness, and in particular the experience of being ill, has received little philosophical attention. This may be because illness is often understood as a physiological process that falls within the domain of medical science, and is thus outside the purview of philosophy. In Phenomenology of Illness Havi Carel argues that the experience of illness has been wrongly neglected by philosophers and proposes to fill the lacuna. Phenomenology of Illness provides a distinctively philosophical account of illness. Using phenomenology, the philosophical method for first-person investigation, Carel explores how illness modifies the ill person's body, values, and world. The aim of Phenomenology of Illness is twofold: to contribute to the understanding of illness through the use of philosophy and to demonstrate the importance of illness for philosophy. Contra the philosophical tendency to resist thinking about illness, Carel proposes that illness is a philosophical tool. Through its pathologising effect, illness distances the ill person from taken for granted routines and habits and reveals aspects of human existence that normally go unnoticed. Phenomenology of Illness develops a phenomenological framework for illness and a systematic understanding of illness as a philosophical tool.
Research in the field of mind/body/spirit/mental connection is extensive. However very few studies have focused on the persons who have survived a life-threatening critical illness and the way in which they redefine beliefs, values and their world view. Recognition of the transformation that occurs following such a crisis is an important contribution toward understanding all facets of the connectedness that exists between our mind, our body, our spirit, our mental/'emotional state and healing. This study will consider the question "What kind of transformation occurs for some who experiencecritical Illness?" Transformation means starting with one thing and ending up with another. This study reveals the inner world of eight participants (co-searchers) who experienced a medical crisis and found their inner world transformed. A clear view of the road taken by the participants is elucidated following a heuristic path requiring the researcher to interview to the point of saturation. The criterion for a heuristic study has been met. Relevant literature pertaining to the changing worldview of professionals working within the area of wellness from Grecian times to the present is considered. Some qualitative methods available to researchers are explored. This study can contribute to modification and/or expansion of existing health care programs to include the person in the situation. Credible evidence is presented to support the importance of acknowledging the positive aspects within illnesses that can be offered within a variety of health related disciplines: psychology, counseling, nursing, and religious studies, social work and health care providers. The nature of heuristic research is to merge the participants and the investigator. The co-searchers and the investigator reveal their understanding of those things that existed only in an innate dimension prior to illness. As a result of their experience, the researcher and the co-searchers present a rich plethora of changed perspectives they identify as transformative revealing the power illness offers us to reevaluate our personal actions impacting those around us as our worldview expands. This study is not meant to query who lives and who dies, for death ultimately claims us all.
"In this deeply affecting memoir, Arthur Frank explores the events of illness from within: the transformation from person to patient, the pain, and the ceremony of recovery....In poignant and clear prose, he offers brilliant insights into the circumstances when our bodies emotions are pushed to the extreme. Ultimately, he examines what it means to be human."--Publisher.
Travel with one heartbroken family as they struggle to find help for their son, face unspeakable tragedy, receive unexpected forgiveness, and deal with the aftermath of a child whose mental health issues ended in calamity . . . and transformation. Discover the confidence that buoys author Joan Becker and her family as they push for reform in the broken mental health system before more lives are ruined. Their story offers hope, help, and heart-felt compassion. "Joan Becker has a generous spirit and kind heart that come forward in this book. By sharing her family's experience she'll help other families struggling with mental illness feel less alone. That's a tremendous accomplishment when the illness causes feelings of isolation and hopelessness for parents who are desperate to help their suffering child. The mental health system can and should be better, and this book inspires all of us to do everything we can to make it so." U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)