Download Free The Interpretation Of Illness Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Interpretation Of Illness and write the review.

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
In August, 1985, the 2nd International Conference on Illness Behaviour was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The first International Conference took place one year previous in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. This book is based on the proceedings of the second conference. The purpose behind this conference was to facilitate the development of a single integrated model to account for illness experience and presentation. A major focus of the conference was to outline methodological issues related to current behaviour research. A multidiscipl~nary approach was emphasized because of the bias that collaborative efforts are likely to be the most successful in achieving greater understanding of illness behaviour. Significant advances in our knowledge are occurring in all areas of the biological and social sciences, albeit more slowly in the latter areas. Marked specialization in each of these areas has lead to greater difficulty in integrating new knowledge with that of other areas and the development of a meaningful cohesive model to which all can relate. Thus there is a major need for forums such as that provided by this conference.
This work provides a phenomenological account of the experience of illness and the manner in which meaning is constituted by the patient and the physician. The author provides a detailed account of the way in which illness and body are apprehended differently by doctor and patient. This title has been awarded the first Edwin Goodwin Ballard Prize in Phenomenology.
Georg Groddeck (1866-1934), who was trained as a physician but became famous for his success as a healer, introduced a radical concept in The Book of It that we virtually always cause our own illness and injury; therefore, we can cure and avoid both. Groddeck utilized the technique of psychoanalysis - which had just been invented by Freud - to communicate with the source of the illness, which he called the "the it" (or the map of the psyche). He believed the "it" had the power to cure illness as well as cause it. Perhaps science is catching up with Groddeck's notion, for modern currents in medicine suggest there is a linkage between the way we live, the way we think, and illness. Readings in behavioral medicine indicate that we do have control over our immune system; and empirical studies of behavior show a strong relationship between stress and illness. In The Interpretation of Illness, Homer goes beyond Groddeck's initial insight to emphasize that illness is a communication to others, especially a call for sympathy. No one consciously likes to be sick or hurt; but we all, consciously or unconsciously, tell others about our ills, expecting them to extend sympathy. Homer argues that if we change this pattern of communication - either by learning to forego sympathy or by gaining it in less destructive ways - we can prevent illness or alleviate existing symptoms. The change in communication involves expressing ourselves knowingly and deliberately to others. Interpretation is a series of letters from Homer, writing under the persona Augie, to a friend. Appropriately enough, this style is similar to the format used by Groddeck in The Book of the It.
This book is based on collective research carried out during the 1980s. This edition appears ten years after the original publication in French. Since then we have experienced many changes. In the late decade, disciplines have changed, as have the societies being researched. The outbreak of AIDS in Africa and the industrial world is not the least of these major and influential changes. The reader today will be sensitive to these changes and this research maintains its value as an intellectual endeavour and a useful model.
From one of America's most celebrated psychiatrists, the book that has taught generations of healers why healing the sick is about more than just diagnosing their illness. Modern medicine treats sick patients like broken machines -- figure out what is physically wrong, fix it, and send the patient on their way. But humans are not machines. When we are ill, we experience our illness: we become scared, distressed, tired, weary. Our illnesses are not just biological conditions, but human ones. It was Arthur Kleinman, a Harvard psychiatrist and anthropologist, who saw this truth when most of his fellow doctors did not. Based on decades of clinical experience studying and treating chronic illness, The Illness Narratives makes a case for interpreting the illness experience of patients as a core feature of doctoring. Before Being Mortal, there was The Illness Narratives. It remains today a prescient and passionate case for bridging the gap between patient and practitioner.
The etiology of the Wimbum people in the Western Grassfields of Cameroon is described through an examination of the way in which the meanings of key concepts, used to interpret and explain illness and other forms of misfortune, are continually being produced and reproduced in the praxis of everyday communication. During the course of numerous dialogues, witchcraft, a highly ambivalent force, gradually emerges as the prime mover. As destructive cannibals or respectable elders the witches are the ultimate cause of all significant illness, misfortune and death, and as diviners they are also the ultimate judges who apportion moral responsibility. Even the ancestors and the traditional gods turn out to be fronts behind which the witches hide their activities.The study is on three levels: a medical anthropological exploration of explanations of illness and misfortune; a detailed ethnography of traditional African cosmology and witchcraft; and an examination of recent theoretical issues in anthropology such as the nature of ethnographic fieldwork and the possibility of dialogical or postmodern ethnography.
Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.
"In this penetrating analysis of the social attitudes toward various major illnesses - chiefly tuberculosis, the scourge of the 19th century, and cancer, the terror of our own - Susan Sontag demonstrates that "illness is not a metaphor" and shows why "the healthiest way of being ill is one purified of metaphoric thinking." Once tuberculosis was identified as a bacterial infection, it ceased to be a symbol of a romantic fading away or of a sensitive or artistic temperament, and it could be treated and cured. Similarly, we must today cease to think of cancer as a mark of doom, a punishment or a sign of a repressed personality, and recognize it for what it is: one disease among many and often receptive to treatment." -- from back cover.
Comprehensive overview of illness narratives in practice, divided into eight distinct parts. The clear layout allows the readers to focus on the area essential to them and get a comprehensive overview and reflective stance of narratives in that field.