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The dominance of 'illness narratives' in narrative healing studies has tended to mean that the focus centres 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 relationshi
List of contents
Part I: Methods1. Fieldwork methods
2. The theoretical frame
Part II: The diagnosis narratives3. 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 medicine9. 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 politic14. The business of medicine
15. Overdiagnosis and overtreatment
Part V: Narrative studies on healing reconsidered16. 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
About the author
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).
Summary
The dominance of ‘illness narratives’ in narrative healing studies has tended to mean that the focus centres 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 relationshi
