The Journeys We Make Flashcards
What are some definitions for the nature of illness?
Cassell (1976) - illness is what we feel when we go to visit a doctor and disease is what we have after we go to the doctors office and we are on our way back home
Helmen (2007) - illness can be though of as a type of misfortune which brings on subjective experience of physical and emotional changes which are generally confirmed by other people
Kleinman (1989) - to become temporarily demoralised with one’s world
What is the language of distress?
It acts as a bridge between the subjective experiences of impaired well-being and social acknowledgement of them (so it has an interpretation involved in it, people have to agree that you are sick).
It can be very culturally distinctive
What does Health Care Pluralism mean?
Kleinman suggests that there are multiple sources of expertise/knowledge of health care (ie. not just doctors that can help you get better)
What are the Heirarchies of Resort?
The layers and categories of people you go to seek relief from illness.
Eg. if its not that bad you may ask flatmate first what they think and if they help you that’s it, but if not you go to the next option for help and then the next option.
Describe contested illnesses/diagnoses
These show the multidirectional flow of interpretive work in ‘doing’ health and illness and it gets political.
eg. you may consider yourself ill but few agree you have a disease
Others think that you have a disease but you yourself consider you are just one more variation of how to be normal (ie. successfully living with deafness)
What is the concept of pilgrimage?
The process of going to a far place to understand a familiar place better.
Eg. with the parents with deaf kids who travelled far to a place that taught them how to understand sign language so they could better understand their kids.
Why is distant treatment sometimes better?
It is the allure of the culturally different.
- Neighbours of great social support but can also thus be great enemies, to be the local healer’s client makes one vulnerable to them
- Just as free medicine is often deemed worthless, so treatment undertaken without the travail of pilgrimage is often regarded as ineffective
- People also travel for high tech biomedicine for cheaper treatment, kinder older style care.
What are Canguilheim’s definitions for health and disease
- Canguilheim (1991): ‘disease is the departure from the norm established by biomedical authority’ and to which the practice of medicine seeks to return the client
- Canguilheim (1991): (in simpler words) health is the capacity to become sick and recover, is contextually dependent and not all about becoming ‘normal’ - instead it is about being able to live your life in a wide array of circumstances which become normal to you
