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Diagnosis Narratives and the Healing Ritual in Western Medicine book cover

1st Edition

Diagnosis Narratives and the Healing Ritual in Western Medicine

By James Meza Copyright 2019
272 Pages
by Routledge

272 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

272 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
The dominance of "illness narratives" in narrative healing studies has tended to mean that the focus centers around the healing of the individual. Meza proposes that this emphasis is misplaced and the true focus of cultural healing should lie in managing the disruption of disease and death (cultural or biological) to the individual’s relationship with society. By explicating narrative theory... Read more

Part I: Methods
1. Fieldwork methods
2. The theoretical frame



Part II: The diagnosis narratives
3. Entrance into the field
4. Who is narrating and what story are they telling?
5. Spatial cognitions
6. The doctor tells the diagnostic story to the patient
7. Joint attention to the diagnostic narrative
8. Spatial therapy



Part III: Ritual healing in Western medicine
9. Ritual theory
10. Disease as an existential threat
11. Qualifications of a leech
12. Healing relationships
13. When the healing ritual fails



Part IV: The body politic
14. The business of medicine
15. Overdiagnosis and overtreatment

Part V: Narrative studies on healing reconsidered
16. Narrative healing reconsidered
17. Theoretical synthesis
18. Reflections of a healer



Appendix A: Individual patient narratives
Appendix B: Doctors talk about work
Appendix C: Codebook and themes

Biography

James P. Meza is Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Science at Wayne State University School of Medicine, USA. He holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and is a practising doctor of medicine (MD).

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