Article February 17, 2003 Issue

A FEW WORDS FROM THE LOST ART OF HEALING

No pleasure is quite akin to the joy of helping other human beings secure and lengthen their hold on life. (Pref. xx)

We ... turn to medicine to repair what essentially are tears in the social fabric wrought by violence, economic oppression, class ostracism, racism, sexism, and a host of other factors. In a consumer culture, in which nearly everything is treated as an article of consumption, medicalization is the response to mounting social frustration. Dissatisfactions with one's job, marriage, children, or with one's lot in life, are not uncommonly somaticized. (p. 317)

A patient can be driven to morbid despair, imagining the worst, after overhearing an inappropriate phrase or an ill-chosen word.

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

Send a comment to the editors
NEXT IN THIS ISSUE
Article
Is it contagious?
February 17, 2003
Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit