Worlds of Illness

In recent years the study of illness as experienced by patients has emerged as an approach to understanding sickness. Descriptions of the everyday situations of people with particular diseases, provide a commentary upon the nature of symptoms and upon the relation of the body to society. This approach stresses the biographical and cultural contexts in which illness arises and is borne by individuals and those who care for them. It emphasises the need to understand illness in terms of the patients own interpretation, of its onset, the course of its progress and the potential of the treatment for the condition. Worlds of Illness examines people's experience of illness and their understanding of what it means to be healthy. The contributors are the first to offer this biographic and cultural approach in one volume, redefining the perspective further and drawing attention to its potential for questioning theoretical assumptions about health and illness.

Alan Radley

Introduction Alan Radley 1. Constructing discourse about health and their social determinants Janine Pierret 2. Social Class and the contextualization of illness experience Alan Blair 3. Attitude of mind as a means of resisting illness Kristian Pollock 4. Religion and Illness Rory Williams 5. Chronic illness and the pursuit of virtue in everyday life Gareth Williams 6. The role of metaphor in adjustment to chronic illness Alan Ridley 7. Why do the victims blame themselves? Mildred Blaxter 8. Towards the reconstruction of an organic mental disorder Tom Kitwood 9. The world of illness of the closed head injured Paul Bellaby 10. On knowing the patient: experiences of nurses undertaking care Martha MacLeod 11. On chronic illness: immigrant women in Canada's workforce Joan Anderson