In his introductory essay, “Framing Disease: Illness, Society, and History,” historian Charles E. Rosenberg explores the complex nature of disease and its role as a social actor, asserting, “’in some ways disease does not exist until we have agreed that it does, by perceiving, naming, and responding to it.” Rosenberg’s statement finds its basis in his multi-layered approach to the study of disease, which he refers to as “framing.” Rather than focusing on a purely social or biological construction of disease, he aims to study disease from a wider perspective; one that appropriately accounts for the numerous approaches academics may take when analyzing disease. Thus, in his aforementioned comment, Rosenberg is claiming that disease does
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Diagnosing a patient with a disease has an impact that is two-fold. It provides new possibilities for individuals to understand or “frame” themselves and their actions, while also limiting, to a certain degree, their ability to separate themselves from their disease. For example, Rosenberg discusses how the classification of homosexuality as a disease provided such individuals, for better or for worse, with various news ways of understanding their behavior and actions. Those with chronic diseases, however, often adopt the diagnosis as a part of their identity. In fact, Rosenberg refers to chronic diseases as “constitutional” because they come to play a key role in patients’ lives, acting as a “structuring element in an ongoing narrative” as well as a motivation to “construe past habits and incidents in terms of their possible relationship to present disease.” In their article, “The Social Construction of Illness,” researchers Kirstin Barker and Peter Conrad elaborate on the struggle of people to reclaim their sense of self from their illness, calling it an “illness identity.” The researchers argue that diseased individuals often become “immersed in the day-to-day aspects of managing a chronic illness”; that is, they become isolated from that which humanizes them—their relationships with the people around them and …show more content…
According to Barker and Conrad, contested diseases are those in which “sufferers claim to have a specific disease that many physicians do not recognize or acknowledge as distinctly medical.” Such patients often have to fight to have their illnesses socially and medically legitimized. For example, in the 1995 movie Safe, the protagonist experiences worrying symptoms, such as sudden vomiting and a bloody nose; however, doctors repeatedly tell her that there is nothing wrong with her. The lack of diagnosis in this case affected the protagonist’s relationship with those around her and society in general, as people began questioning her sanity. In their book Invisible Illness, Megan Arroll and Christine Dancey write passionately about the sense of guilt, embarrassment, and stigmatization that patients may feel if doctors and society do not legitimize their pain, telling the reader they may “have to fight for a diagnosis,” particularly if they want their disease to be addressed in some way by the public, or by insurance companies. Again, the importance of social legitimacy interacts with disease to affect how society chooses to categorize and address an illness. Thus, diagnosis and public policy reactions to disease both provide researchers with vitally important and interrelated methods of analyzing and studying
Diagnosing a patient with a disease has an impact that is two-fold. It provides new possibilities for individuals to understand or “frame” themselves and their actions, while also limiting, to a certain degree, their ability to separate themselves from their disease. For example, Rosenberg discusses how the classification of homosexuality as a disease provided such individuals, for better or for worse, with various news ways of understanding their behavior and actions. Those with chronic diseases, however, often adopt the diagnosis as a part of their identity. In fact, Rosenberg refers to chronic diseases as “constitutional” because they come to play a key role in patients’ lives, acting as a “structuring element in an ongoing narrative” as well as a motivation to “construe past habits and incidents in terms of their possible relationship to present disease.” In their article, “The Social Construction of Illness,” researchers Kirstin Barker and Peter Conrad elaborate on the struggle of people to reclaim their sense of self from their illness, calling it an “illness identity.” The researchers argue that diseased individuals often become “immersed in the day-to-day aspects of managing a chronic illness”; that is, they become isolated from that which humanizes them—their relationships with the people around them and …show more content…
According to Barker and Conrad, contested diseases are those in which “sufferers claim to have a specific disease that many physicians do not recognize or acknowledge as distinctly medical.” Such patients often have to fight to have their illnesses socially and medically legitimized. For example, in the 1995 movie Safe, the protagonist experiences worrying symptoms, such as sudden vomiting and a bloody nose; however, doctors repeatedly tell her that there is nothing wrong with her. The lack of diagnosis in this case affected the protagonist’s relationship with those around her and society in general, as people began questioning her sanity. In their book Invisible Illness, Megan Arroll and Christine Dancey write passionately about the sense of guilt, embarrassment, and stigmatization that patients may feel if doctors and society do not legitimize their pain, telling the reader they may “have to fight for a diagnosis,” particularly if they want their disease to be addressed in some way by the public, or by insurance companies. Again, the importance of social legitimacy interacts with disease to affect how society chooses to categorize and address an illness. Thus, diagnosis and public policy reactions to disease both provide researchers with vitally important and interrelated methods of analyzing and studying