The Illness Narratives
Suffering, Healing, And The Human Condition

Dr. Kleinman makes a distinction between illness and disease, and explains that the job of the physician is to reconfigure patients’ culturally-shaped “illness problems” (experiences of symptoms and suffering) as narrow, technical “disease problems” (anatomical or physiological changes). He claims t......more

I am not a doctor, I have no interest in the medical field, but this book kept my interest. I was required to read parts this for a class, but I finished it independently because I wanted to read more. I think this book can be revealing to everyone, whether they are doctors, med school students or p......more

It is doubtlessly a comfort to patients everywhere that Kleinman's book, addressed first and foremost to doctors and future doctors, does such an elegant job explaining how the medicalized procedure of getting a patient to describe their illness does violence to their overall experience of the illne......more

simply brilliant. not a read for everyone - the book is written in a thoroughly academic tongue and is structured in a way that serves the points and frameworks the author wants to establish, instead of the reader's ease or comfort. so the read is often dense and more than a little challenging. with......more

This was a beautiful read and only made me cry a few times due to its depth and profound realness. The Illness Narratives is a volume any medical professional, healer, or ill person ought to read. But likely, in your lifetime, you will know someone or be that someone who is ill, and you will be seek......more