Making Sense Of Illness

This 1998 book contains historical essays about how diseases change their meaning.

`This book is a "must read" for all students of health psychology, and will be of considerable interest and value to others interested in the field. The discipline has not involved itself with the central issues of this book so far, but Radley has now brought this material together in an accessible way, offering important new perspectives, and directions for the discipline. This book goes a long way towards making sense for, and of, health psychology′ - Journal of Health Psychology What are people′s beliefs about health? What do they do when they feel ill? Why do they go to the doctor? How do they live with chronic disease? This introduction to the social psychology of health and illness addresses these and other questions about how people make sense of illness in everyday life, either alone or with the help of others. Alan Radley reviews findings from medical sociology, health psychology and medical anthropology to demonstrate the relevance of social and psychological explanations to questions about disease and its treatment. Topics covered include: illness, the patient and society; ideas about health and staying healthy; recognizing symptoms and falling ill; and the healing relationship: patients, nurses and doctors. The author also presents a critical account of related issues - stress, health promotion and gender differences.

Health, illness and disease are topics well-suited to interdisciplinary inquiry. This book brings together scholars from around the world who share an interest in and a commitment to bridging the traditional boundaries of inquiry. We hope that this book begins new conversations that will situate health in broader socio-cultural contexts and establish connections between health, illness and disease and other socio-political issues. This book is the outcome of the first global conference on "Making Sense of: Health, Illness and Disease," held at St Catherine's College, Oxford, in June 2002. The selected papers pursue a range of topics from the cultural significance of narratives of health, illness and disease to healing practices in contemporary society as well as patients' illness experiences. Researchers and health care practitioners now live in the age of interdisciplinarity, which has transformed both health care delivery and research on health. The essays in this collection transcend the traditional boundaries of biomedicine and draw attention to the many ways in which health is embedded in socio-cultural norms and how these norms, in turn, shape health practices and health care. This volume is of interest not only to researchers but also to those delivering health care.

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2013. Chronic illness, together with people experiencing or treating it, became almost mute to predominant biomedical narration pervasive in mainstream media, education, medical and pharmaceutical industry. Contributors in this book aim to represent, discuss, and preserve the vanishing voices and stories on chronic illness from dimensions beyond medicine so that we may make sense of chronicity with the diversity it deserves. The book also incorporates research articles which share important stories about chronicity. These stories, same as chronic illness in our world, should not be treated in a ‘standardised’ way. Each reader, we hope, will relate the meanings of chronicity in this book to his or her own world.

Every day we make decisions about our health - some big and some small. What we eat, how we live and even where we live can affect our health. But how can we be sure that the advice we are given about these important matters is right for us? This book will provide you with the right tools for assessing health advice.

The chapters in this collection, representing the multidisciplinary character of the conference, provide a careful exposition on health, illness, and disease from disciplines that are sometimes neglected or dismissed by so-called pure science or medical research.

Challenges popular conceptions to outline new methods for promoting wellness and longevity, arguing that traditional medicine has not been successful in treating serious illness while urging readers to embrace a systemic understanding of the body that incorporates the use of revolutionary technologies.