Under the Medical Gaze

Under the Medical Gaze
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 385
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780520925090
ISBN-13 : 0520925092
Rating : 4/5 (092 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Under the Medical Gaze by : Susan Greenhalgh

Download or read book Under the Medical Gaze written by Susan Greenhalgh and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001-05-03 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling account of the author's experience with a chronic pain disorder and subsequent interaction with the American health care system goes to the heart of the workings of power and culture in the biomedical domain. It is a medical whodunit full of mysterious misdiagnosis, subtle power plays, and shrewd detective work. Setting a new standard for the practice of autoethnography, Susan Greenhalgh presents a case study of her intense encounter with an enthusiastic young specialist who, through creative interpretation of the diagnostic criteria for a newly emerging chronic disease, became convinced she had a painful, essentially untreatable, lifelong muscle condition called fibromyalgia. Greenhalgh traces the ruinous effects of this diagnosis on her inner world, bodily health, and overall well-being. Under the Medical Gaze serves as a powerful illustration of medicine's power to create and inflict suffering, to define disease and the self, and to manage relationships and lives. Greenhalgh ultimately learns that she had been misdiagnosed and begins the long process of undoing the physical and emotional damage brought about by her nearly catastrophic treatment. In considering how things could go so awry, she embarks on a cogent and powerful analysis of the sociopolitical sources of pain through feminist, cultural, and political understandings of the nature of medical discourse and practice in the United States. She develops fresh arguments about the power of medicine to medicalize our selves and lives, the seductions of medical science, and the deep, psychologically rooted difficulties women patients face in interactions with male physicians. In the end, Under the Medical Gaze goes beyond the critique of biomedicine to probe the social roots of chronic pain and therapeutic alternatives that rely on neither the body-cure of conventional medicine nor the mind-cure of some alternative medicines, but rather a broader set of strategies that address the sociopolitical sources of pain.


Under the Medical Gaze Related Books

Under the Medical Gaze
Language: en
Pages: 385
Authors: Susan Greenhalgh
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2001-05-03 - Publisher: Univ of California Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This compelling account of the author's experience with a chronic pain disorder and subsequent interaction with the American health care system goes to the hear
The Birth of the Clinic
Language: en
Pages: 344
Authors: Michel Foucault
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2002-11-01 - Publisher: Routledge

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Foucault's classic study of the history of medicine.
Medical Bondage
Language: en
Pages: 182
Authors: Deirdre Cooper Owens
Categories: Medical
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-11-15 - Publisher: University of Georgia Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The accomplishments of pioneering doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that thes
Fixing Sex
Language: en
Pages: 381
Authors: Katrina Karkazis
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-11-11 - Publisher: Duke University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What happens when a baby is born with “ambiguous” genitalia or a combination of “male” and “female” body parts? Clinicians and parents in these situ
Just One Child
Language: en
Pages: 436
Authors: Susan Greenhalgh
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-02-13 - Publisher: Univ of California Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Population politics are a major issue in China. Susan Greenhaigh explores the origins and development of the one-child policy from the late 1970s to the present