Farkas Psychosomatic Illness in Contemporary Culture

Something. Nothing. Everything
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-315-51568-7
Verlag: Taylor & Francis
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 174 Seiten

Reihe: Routledge Advances in the Medical Humanities

Pain. Chronic digestive symptoms. Poor sleep. Neuropathy. Sensory disturbances. Fatigue. Panic. Constant illness and discomfort. Frequent difficulty coping with work, school, relationships.

Despite the common experience of being told that it’s all in their heads, that they’re making themselves sick, individuals with these symptoms are experiencing a very real, sometimes debilitating, illness phenomenon. But what is it? Physical or mental illness? Political and social identity? Cultural, narrative or discursive construction? When something goes awry at the intersection of mind and body – the psychosomatic – what is happening?

Widely recognized, yet difficult to classify, diagnose, treat, and explain, psychosomatic disorders are heavily stigmatized and the associated syndromes have become the site of controversy and antipathy in the provider-patient relationship. In popular culture, terms such as medically unexplained symptoms, hysteria, neurasthenia, hypochondria, functional illness, and malingering—are misunderstood, unknown, or rejected outright. Meanwhile, perspectives from cultural and textual studies focus on the psychosomatic as a metaphor in art, literature, and popular media, where disruptions of the body and mind are regularly made to stand in for individual alienation and cultural malaise. Bringing together multiple, competing, complementary perspectives such as these, this challenging volume tackles causes, and innovative, humanistic solutions, to conflicts in the provider-patient relationship; uses the psychosomatic as a lens for theorizing the self in culture; and examines the metaphorical potential of the psychosomatic in fictional narrative.

Providing a unique assemblage of interdisciplinary, international approaches to understanding the problem of the psychosomatic in both expert and lay discourses, this pioneering edited collection is aimed at students and researchers of health, popular culture, and the health care humanities.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Farkas, Carol-Ann

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Gesundheitssoziologie, Medizinsoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Invalidität, Krankheit und Abhängigkeit: Soziale Aspekte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction Carol-Ann Farkas

Part 1: Conflict and Response: Patient and Provider Experiences of the "Psychosomatic"

1. Psychosomatic Patients and Providers: at the Mercy of a Medical System Caryn Kseniya Rubanovich

2. Medically Unexplained Symptoms and the Ethics of Diagnosis Louise Stone and Claire Hooker

3. Narrative Medicine and Fibromyalgia: A Helpful Approach for a Constructive, Caring Relationship Maria Giulia Marini, Daniele De Nardo, Paola Chesi and Luigi Reale

4. Medicalstudentitis as a Rite of Passage in Popular Culture Maria Tutorskaya

Part 2: Body, Mind, Illness, Wellness: Theories of Psychosomatic Selfhood in Contemporary Culture

5. Impossible Entities: Psychosomatics, the Politics of Visibility, and Human Beings Amba J. Sempie

6. ‘Psychosomatic’ Illness in Popular Culture: Women with Long-term Exhaustion in Fictional Literature: A Comparative Approach Hilde Bondevik and Olaug Lian

7. Feeding Your Feelings: Emotional Eating in 1950s American Popular Culture Jessica Parr
8. Poor Things: Parodying Diagnosis in Popular Culture Hannah Tweed

9. Masculine Bodies, Effeminate Minds: Mental and Psychosomatic Illness in The Sopranos Camelia Raghinaru