Different Cultures In The Illness Narratives, By Arthur Kleinman

The general population have this general practice they all engage and that is to maintain the consistency of their social worlds. In addition, the social world’s that were developed form their cultures they were raised in, showed them how to behave in their social worlds. Furthermore, the different cultures developed the understanding on how to treat illness. Then manipulated that understanding into shaping and transitioning into their own individual ideals and norms of society. This was written in Arthur Kleinman’s article where he went on to explain how these social worlds are culturally shaped. Kleinman urges the establishment of the patient to doctor-bridge. In his article Kleinman projects how different cultures develop and understand …show more content…
Kleinman wrote the Illness Narratives in 1988 to describe the Meaning of Symptoms and Disease. In addition, Kleinman wrote that the term, illness is viewed differently throughout cultures and that the outcomes of illness vary from person to person. Similarly disease is viewed differently throughout cultures, one culture may condemn disease to directly being affected by religion or one culture may view disease as the fallacies in maintaining health (for example, eating healthy, resting, and being active). These practices generally lead to not having the need of a physician. Furthermore, Kleinman highlights that illness is not just the way it is described as. It is a much more complex term that has several layers attached to it. These so called “layers” are the meaning of how illness not only affects the experience of the sick but also the experience of the families. Illness is not the only one that creates chaos in our lives but the symptoms that follow actually do. Let’s say a person develops the flu that will inhibit them for doing any activity due to how sick they actually are. In contrast, when people experience any kind of discomfort they get angry that no one sees that pain and that generally develops into the constant need to prove pain is real. Kleinman described the physician to patient interaction as weak in different cultures. For example, generally in Western Societies the physician tells the patient the condition of their disease but in eastern societies, the physician does not mention the condition to the patient but only tells the families. The families then do not tell their loved ones of their condition and leave it completely ambiguous. The ill person is seen as member of a family that is embedded in a social world with cultural factors that contribute to the experience of illness. Thus, it can be related that the